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ALTON    LOCKE, 


TAJLOR  AND  POET. 

/  7  0  L 

an  ^utobicgrapl)}). 


NEW    YOEK: 

•lARPER    &    BROTIIKKS,    I' U  P,  L  I  s  II  E  R  S, 
FRANKLIN     SQUAHE. 

1875, 


.id 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

FAG  a 

i\.  Poet's  Cuildhood , 7 

CHAPTER  n. 
Thk  Tailors'  Work-room 21 

CHAPTER  in. 
Sandy  Mackaye , 01 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Tailors  and  Soldiers 41 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Skeptic's  JIother    , 52 


CHAPTER  VI. 


The  Dulwich  Gallery 


CHAPTER  VII. 
First  Love 


60 


72 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
Light  in  a  Dark  Place g  j 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Poetry  and  Poets qq 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ho-w  Foles  turn  Chartists , gg 


[ 


iv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

rABK 

"  The  Yard  where  the  Gentlemen  Live" 109 

CHAPTER  XH. 
Cambridge  118 

CHAPTER  Xm. 
The  Lost  Idol  Found 127 

CHAPTER  Xiy. 
A  Cathedral  Town 148 

CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Man  of  Science , 155 

CHAPTER  XYl. 
Cultivated  Women ^t 1 60 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Sermons  and  Stones 163 

CHAPTER  XVni. 
My  Fall 16ft 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Short  and  Sad 175 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Pegasus  in  Harness 177 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
The  Sweater's  Den 186 

CHAPTER  XXH. 
An  Emersonian  Sermon 196 

CHAPTER  XXIH. 
The  Freedom  of  the  Press 204 


1  CONTENTS.  V 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

PAOB 

The  Townsman's  Sermon  to  the  Gownsjian 210 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
A  TuuE  Nobleman 220 

CHAPTER  XXVr. 
The  Triumphant  Author 225 

CHAPTER  XXVH. 
The  Plush  Breeches  Tragedy 231 

CHAPTER  XXVni. 
The  Men  who  are  Eaten 242 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
The  Trial 260 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Prison  Thoughts 269 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
The  New  Church  279 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
The  Tower  of  Babel 282 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
A  Patriot's  Reward 290 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
The  Tenth  of  April 304 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
The  Lowest  Deep 310 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 
Dream  Land 319 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
The  True  Demagogue 336 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
Miracles  and  Science 348 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
Nemesis 354 

CHAPTER  XL. 
Priests  and  People 359 

CHAPTER  XLI. 
Fkeedom,  Equality,  and  Brotherhood 36l 


ALTOI    LOCKE, 

TAILOR    AND    POET. 


CHAPTER  I. 
A  POET'S  CHILDHOOD. 


I  AM  a  Cockney  among  Cockneys.  Italy  and  the  Tropics,  I 
the  Highlands  and  Devonshire,  I  know  only  in  dreams.  Even  | 
the  Surrey  hills,  of  whose  loveliness  I  have  heard  so  much, 
are  to  me  a  distant  fairy-land,  whoso  gleaming  ridges  I  am 
worthy  only  to  behold  afar.  With  the  exception  of  two  j 
journeys,  never  to  be  forgotten,  my  knowledge  of  England  i.s  I 
bounded  by  the  horizon  which  encircles  Fvichmond  hill.  y 

My  earliest  recollections  are  of  a  suburban  street  ;  of  its/ 
jumble  of  little  shops  and  little  terraces,  each  exhibiting  some 
fresh  variety  of  capricious  ugliness  ;  the  little  scraps  of  garden 
before  the  doors,  with  their  dusty,  stunted  lilacs  and  balsam 
poplars,  were  my  only  forests ;  my  only  wild  animals,  the 
dingy,  merry  sparrows,  who  quareled  fearlessly  on  my  window- 
sill,  ignorant  of  trap  or  gun.  From  my  earliest  childhood, 
through  long  nights  of  sleepless  pain,  as  the  midnight  bright- 
ened into  dawn,  and  the  glaring  lamps  grew  pale,  I  used 
to  listen,  with  a  pleasant  awe,  to  the  ceaseless  roll  of  the 
market-wagons,  bringing  up  to  the  great  city  the  treasures 
of  the  gay  green  country,  the  land  of  fruits  and  flowers,  for 
which  1  have  yearned  all  my  life  in  vain.  They  seemed  to 
ray  boyish  fancy  mysterious  messengers  from  another  world . 
the  silent,  lonely  night,  in  which  they  were  the  only  moving 
things,  added  to  the  wonder.  I  used  to  get  out  of  bed  to  gaze 
at  tliem,  and  envy  the  coarse  men  and  sluttish  women  who 
attended  them,  their  labor  among  verdant  plants  and  rich 
brown  mould,  on  breezy  slopes,  under  God's  own  clear  sky. 
I  fancied  that  they  learnt  what  I  knew  I  should  have  learnt 
there ;  I  knew  not  then  that  "  the  eye  only  sees  that  which 


f 


8  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

it  brings  with  it  the  power  of  seeing."  When  will  their  eyes 
be  opened  ]  When  will  priests  go  forth  into  the  highways 
and  the  hedges,  and  preach  to  the  plowman  and  the  gipsy 
the  blessed  news,  that  there,  too,  in  every  thicket  and  fallow 
field,  is  the  house  of  God,  there,  too,  the  gate  of  Pleaven  I 

I  do  not  complain  that  I  am  a  Cockney.  That,  too,  is 
God's  gift.  He  made  me  one,  that  I  might  learn  to  feel  for 
jioor  wretches  who  sit  stifled  in  reeking  garrets  and  workrooms, 
drinking  in  disease  with  every  breath — bound  in  their  prison- 
house  of  brick  and  iron,  with  their  own  funeral  pall  hanging 
over  them,  in  that  canopy  of  fog  and  poisonous  smoke,  from 
f  their  cradle  to  their  grave.  I  have  drank  of  the  cup  of  which 
I  they  drink.  And  so  I  have  learnt — if,  indeed,  I  have  learnt 
I  — to  be  a  poet — a  poet  of  the  people.  That  honor,  surely,  was 
worth  buying  with  asthma,  and  rickets,  and  consumption,  and 
weakness,  and — worst  of  all  to  me — with  ugliness.  It  was 
God's  purpose  about  me ;  and,  therefore,  all  circumstances 
combined  to  imprison  me  in  London.  I  used  once,  when  I 
worshiped  circumstance,  to  fancy  it  my  curse.  Fate's  injustice 
to  me,  which  kept  me  from  developing  my  genius,  and  asserting 
my  rank  among  poets.  I  longed  to  escape  to  glorious  Italy 
or  some  other  southern  climate,  where  natural  beauty  v/ould 
have  become  the  very  element  which  I  breathed ;  and  yet, 
what  would  have  come  of  that?  Should  I  not,  as  nobler 
spirits  than  I  have  done,  have  idled  away  my  life  in  Elysian 
dreams,  singing  out  like  a  bird  into  the  air,  inarticulately,  pur- 
poseless, for  mere  joy  and  fullness  of  heart ;  and  taking  no 
share  in  the  terrible  questionings,  the  terrible  strugglings  of 
this  great,  awful,  blessed  time — feeling  no  more  the  pulse  of 
the  great  heart  of  England  stirring  me?  I  used,  as  I  said,  to 
call  it  the  curse  of  circumstance  that  I  was  a  sickly,  decrepit 
Cockney.  My  mother  used  to  tell  me  that  it  Avas  the  cross 
which  God  had  given  me  to  bear.  I  know  now  that  she 
was  right  there.  ■Sheuse.dlo^.say.J.haiaBy^^lisease. was. God's 
Muli.  I  do  not  think,  though,  that  she  spoke  right  there  also. 
I  think  that  it  was  the  will  of  the  world  and  of  the  devil,  of 
man's  avarice,  and  laziness,  and  ignorance.  And  so  would  my 
readers,  perhaps,  had  they  seen  the  shop  in  the  city  where  I 
,was  born  and  nursed,  with  its  little  garrets  reeking  with  human 
breath,  its  kitchens  and  areas  with  noisome  sewers.  A  sani- 
tary reformer  would  not  be  long  in" guessing  the  cause  of  my 
unhealthiness.  He  would  not  rebuke  me — nor  would  she, 
Bweet  soul  !  now  that  she  is  at  rest  in  bliss — for  my  wild 
longings  to  escape,  for  my  envying  the  very  flies  and  sparrows 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  9 

their  wings  that  I  might  flee  miles  away  into  the  country,  and 
breathe  the  air  of  heaven  once,  and  die.  I  have  had  my  wish. 
[  have  made  two  journeys  far  away  into  the  country,  and  they 
have  been  enough  for  me.  I 

My  mother  was  a  widow.    My  father,  whom  I  can  not  rec- 
ollect, was  a  small  retail  tradesman  in  the  city.    He  was  un- 
fortunate ;  and  when  he  died  my  mother  came  down,  and 
lived  penuriously  enough,  I  knew  not  how  till  I  grew  older, 
down  in  that  same  suburban  street.     She  had  been  brought 
up  an  Independent.     After  my  father's  death  she  became  a 
Baptist,   from    conscientious   scruples.      She   considered    the 
Baptists,  as  I  do,  as  the  only  sect  who  thoroughly  embodyj 
the  Calvinistic  doctrines.     She  held  it,  as  I  do,  an  absurd  andj 
impious  thing  for  those  who  believe  mankind  to  be  children  of 
the  devil  till  they  have  been  consciously  "converted,"  to  bap-1 
tize  unconscious  infants  and  give  them  the  sign  of  God's  mer-l 
cy  on  the  mere  chance  of  that  mercy  being  intended  for  them.  I 
When  God  had  proved,  by  converting  them,  that  they  were 
not  reprobate  and  doomed  to  hell  by  His  absolute  and  eternal 
will,  then,  and  not  till  then,  dare  man  baptize  them  into  His 
name.    She  dared  not  palm  a  presumptuous  fiction  on  herself, 
and  call  it  "  charity."    So,  though  we  had  both  been  christened 
during  my  father's  lifetime,  she  purposed  to  have  us  rebaptized, 
if  ever  that  happened — Avhich,  in  her  sense  of  the  word,  never 
happened,  I  am  afraid,  to  me. 
\^    She  gloried  in  her  dissent ;  for  she  was  sprung  from  old 
Puritan  blood,  which  had  flowed  again  and  again  beneath  the 
knife  of  Star-Chamber  butchers,  and  on  the  battle  fields  of 
Naseby  and  Sedgemoor.     And  on  winter  evenings  she  used 
to  sit  with  her  Bible  on  her  knee,  while  I  and  my  little  sistei 
Susan  stood  beside  her  and  listened  to  the  stories  of  Gideon 
and  Barak,  and  Samson  and  Jephthah,  till  her  eye  kindled 
up  and  her  thoughts  passed  forth  from  that  old  Hebrew  time 
home  into  those  English  times  which  she  fancied,  and  not  un- 
truly, like  them.    And  we  used  to  shudder,  and  yet  listen  with 
a  strange  fascination,  as  she  told  us  how  her  ancestor  called 
his  seven  sons  ofl' their  small  Cambridge  farm,  and  horsed  and 
armed  them  himself  to  follow  behind  Cromwell,  and  smite 
kings  and  prelates  with  "the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gid- 
eon."     Whether  she  were  right  or  WTong,  Avhat  is  it  to  me  ] 
What  is  it  now  to  her,  thank  God  ?  \But  those  stories,  andjf  y 
the  strict,  stern  Puritan  education,  learnt  from  the  Independ-jO 
ents,  and  not  the  Baptists,  which   accompanied  them,  hadl 
their  cfi'ect  on  me  for  good  and  ifTX 

A* 


/ 


10  ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

My  mother  moved  by  rule  and  method ;  by  God's  law,  as 
she  considered,  and  that  only.  She  seldom  smiled.  Her  word 
was  absolute.  She  never  commanded  twice,  without  punish- 
ing. And  yet  there  were  abysses  of  unspoken  tenderness  in 
her,  as  well  as  clear,  sound,  womanly  sense  and  insight.  But 
she  thought  herself  as  much  bound  to  keep  down  all  tender- 
ness as  if  she  had  been  some  ascetic  of  the  middle  ages — so  do 
extremes  meet  I  It  was  "  carnal,"  she  considered.  She  had 
as  yet  no  right  to  have  -any  "spiritual  afi'ection"  for  us.  We 
were  still  "  children  of  wrath  and  of  the  devil" — ^not  yet  "  con- 
\  viticed  of  sin,"  "converted,  born  again."  She  had  no  more 
spiritual  bond  with  us,  she  thought,  than  she  had  with  a 
heathen  or  a  Papist.  She  dared  not  even  pray  for  our  con- 
version, earnestly  as  she  prayed  on  every  other  subject.  For 
though  the  majority  of  her  sect  would  have  done  so,  her  clear 
logical  sense  would  yield  to  no  such  tender  inconsistency.  Had 
it  not  been  decided  from  all  eternity  ]  We  were  elect,  or  we 
were  reprobate.  Could  her  prayers  alter  that?'  If  He  had 
chosen  us,  He  would  call  us  in  his  own  good  time :  and  if 
not — .  Only,  again  and  again,  as  I  afterward  discovered 
from  a  journal  of  hers,  she  used  to  beseech  God  with  agonized 
tears  to  set  her  mind  at  rest  by  revealing  to  her  His  will  to- 
ward us.  For  that  comfort  she  could  at  least  rationally  pray. 
But  she  received  no  answer.  Poor,  beloved  mother  1  If  thou 
couldst  not  read  the  answer  written  in  every  flower  and  every 
sunbeam,  written  in  the  very  fact  of  our  existence  here  at  all, 
what  answer  would  have  sufficed  thee  1 

nS.nd  yet,  with  all  this,  she  kept  the  strictest  watch  over 
our  morality  Fear,  of  course,  was  the  only  motive  she  em- 
ployed ;  for  how  could  pur  still  carnal  understandings  be  af- 
fected with  love  to  GoiL^  And  love  to  herself  was  too  paltry 
and  temporary  to  be  urged  by  one  who  knew  that  her  lile  was 
uncertain,  and  who  was  always  trying  to  go  down  to  the 
deepest  eternal  ground  and  reason  of  every  thing,  and  take 
I  her  stand  upon  that.  So  our  god,  or  gods  rather,  till  we  were 
I  twelve  years  old,  were  hell,  the  rod,  the  ten  commandments, 
1  and  public  opinion.  Yet  under  them,  not  they,  but  something 
deeper  far,  both  in  her  and  us,  preserved  us  pure.  Call  it 
natural  character,  conformation  of  the  spirit — conformation  oi' 
the  brain,  if  you  like,  if  you  are  a  scientific  man  and  a  phre- 
nologist. I  never  yet  could  dissect  and  map  out  my  own  being, 
or  my  neighbor's,  as  you  analysts  do.  To  me,  1  myself,  ay, 
and  each  person  round  me,  seem  one  inexplicable  whole  ;  to 
laki'  away  a  single  faculty  whereof,  is  to  destroy  the  harmony, 


i 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POLr         ^ 

the  meanings,  the  life  of  all  the  rest.  yThat  there  is  a  duality  I  ^\l^ 
in  us — a  lifelong  battle  between  flesh  and  spirit — we  all,  alas  I  v^"^ 
know  well  enouglT^  but  which  is  flesh  and  which  is  spirit, 
what  philosophers  in  these  days  can  tell  us  1  Still  less  had 
we  two  found  out  any  such  duality  or  discord  in  ourselves  ;  for 
we  were  gentle  and  obedient  children.  The  pleasures  of  the 
world  did  not  tempt  us.  We  did  not  know  of  their  existence  , 
and  no  foundlings  educated  in  a  nunnery  ever  grew  up  in  more 
virginal  and  spotless  innocence — if  ignorance  be  such — than 
did  Susan  and  I. 

The  narrowness  of  my  sphere  of  observation  only  concen- 
trated the  faculty  into  greater  strength.  The  few  natural 
objects  which  1  met — and  they,  of  course,  constituted  my 
whole  outer  world  (for  art  and  poetry  were  tabooed  both  by  _ 
my  rank  and  my  mother's  sectarianism,  and  the  study  of  hu-  '^ 
man  beings  only  develops  itself  as  the  boy  grows  into  the 
man) — these  few  natural  objects,  I  say,  I  studied  with  intense 
keenness.  I  knew  every  leaf  and  flower  in  the  little  front 
garden  ;  every  cabbage  and  rhubarb-plant  in  Battcrsea-fields 
was  wonderlul  and  beautiful  to  me.  Clouds  and  water  I 
learnt  to  delight  in,  from  my  occasional  lingerings  on  Batter- 
sea-bridge,  and  yearning  westward  looks  toward  the  sun  setting 
above  rich  meadows  and  wooded  gardens,  to  me  a  forbidden 
El  Dorado. 

I  brought  home  wild-flowers  and  chance  beetles  and  butter- 
flies, and  pored  over  them,  not  in  the  spirit  of  a  naturalist,  but 
of  a  poet.  They  were  to  me  God's  angels,  shining  in  coats  of 
mail  and  fairy  masquerading  dresses.  I  envied  them  their 
beauty,  their  freedom.  At  last  I  made  up  my  mind,  in  the 
simple  tenderness  of  a  child's  conscience,  that  it  was  wrong  to 
rob  them  of  the  liberty  for  which  I  pined — to-take  them  away 
from  the  beautiful  broad  country  whither  I  longed  to  follow 
theni ;  and  I  used  to  keep  them  a  day  or  two,  and  then,  re- 
gretfully, carry  them  back,  and  set  them  loose  on  the  first 
opportunity,  with  many  compunctions  of  heart,  when,  as  gen- 
erally happened,  they  had  been  starved  to  death  in  the  mean 
time. 

They  were  my  only  recreations  after  the  hours  of  the  small  ' 
(lay-school  at  the  neighboring  chapel,  where  I  learnt  to  read,  | 
write,  and  sum  ;  except,  now,  and  tlien,  a  London  walk,  with 
my  mother  holding  my  hand  tight  the  whole  way.  She 
would  have  hoodwinked  me,  stopped  my  ears  with  cotton,  and 
led  me  in  a  string— kind,  careful  soul ' — if  it  had  been 
reasonably  safe  on  a  crowded  pavement,  so  fearful  was  she  lest 


li 


12  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

1  should  be  polluted  by  some  chance  sight  or  sound  of  the 
Babylon  which  she  feared  and  hated — almost  as  much  as  she 
duL  the  bishops. 
1/  LThe  only  books  M'hich  I  knew  were  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 

^  and  the  BiblsJ  The  former  was  my  Shakespeare,  my  Dante, 
iny  Vedas,  by  which  I  explained  every  fact  and  phenomenon 
of  life.  Li)tt4eH-was  the  city  of  Destruction,  from  which  I 
was  to  flee  ;  I  was  Christian  ;  the  Wicket  of  the  way  of  Life 
I  had  strangely  identified  with  the  turnpike  at  Battersea- 
bridge  end  ;  and  the  rising  ground  of  Mortlake  and  Wimble- 
don was  the  land  of  Beulah — the  Enchanted  Mountains  of 
the  Shepherds.  If  I  could  once  get  there,  I  was  saved ; — a 
carnal  view,  perhaps,  and  a  childish  one  ;  but  there  was  a  dim 
meaning  and  human  reality  in  it  nevertheless. 

As  for  the  Bible,  I  knew  nothing  of  it  really,  beyond  ihe 
Old  Testament.  Indeed,  the  life  of  Christ  had  little  chance 
of  becoming  interesting  to  me.  My  mother  had  given  me 
formally  to  understand  that  it  spoke  of  matters  too  deep  for 

/  me ;  that,  ^Itill  converted  the  natural  man  could  not  understand 
the  things  of  Godj)'  and  I  obtained  little  more  explanation 
of  it  from  the  two  unintelligible,  dreary  sermons  to  which  I 
listened  every  dreary  Sunday,  in  terror  lest  a  chance  shuffle 
of  my-  feet,  or  a  hint  of  drowsiness — the  natural  result  of  the 
stifling  gallery  and  glaring  windows  and  gaslights — should 
bring  down  a  lecture  and  a  punishment  when  I  returned 
home.  Oh,  those  "  sabbaths  I" — days,  not  of  rest,  but  utter 
weariness,  when  the  beetles  and  the  flowers  were  put  by,  and 
there  \A'as  nothing  to  fill  up  the  long  vacuity  but  books  of 
which  I  could  not  understand  a  word  ;  Avhen  play,  laughter, 
or  even  a  stare  out  of  window  at  the  sinful,  merry,  sabbath- 
breaking  promenaders,  were  all  forbidden,  as  if  the  command- 
ment had  run,  \'' In  it  thou  shalt  take  no  manner  of  amuse- 
,/    ment,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter."    By  what  strange 

C ascetic  perversion  has  that  got  to  mean  "  keeping  holy  the 
sabbath-day  ?" 

Yet  there  was  an  hour's  relief  in  the  evening,  when  either 
my  mother  told  us  Old  Testament  stories,  or  some  preacher 
or  two  came  in  to  supper  after  meeting  ;  and  I  used  to  sit  in 
the  corner  and  listen  to  their  talk ;  not  that  I  understood  a 
word,  but  the  mere  struggle  to  understand — the  mere  watching 
my  mother's  earnest  face — my  pride  in  the  reverent  flattery 
with  which  the  worthy  men  addressed  her  as  "  a  mother  in 
Israel,"  were  enough  to  fill  up  the  blank  for  me  till  bed-time. 

Of  "vital  Christianity"  I  heard  much;  but,  with  all  my 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         ]3 

efforts,  could  find  out  nothing.  Indeed,  it  did  not  seem  inter- 
esting enongh  to  tempt  me  to  find  out  much.  It  seemed  a  set 
of  doctrines,  behoving  in  which  was  to  have  a  magical  eflect 
on  people,  by  saving  them  from  the  everlastin^g.^ torture  due  to 
sins  and  temptations  which  I  had  never  felt.  iJNow  and  then, 
believing,  in  obedience  to  my  mother's  assurances,  and  the 
solemn  prayers  of  the  ministers  about  me,  that  I  was  a  child 
of  hell,  and  a  lost  and  miserable  sinner,  I  used  to  have  ac- 
cesses of  terror,  and  fancy  that  I  should  surely  wake  next 
morning  in  everlasting  flames. |  Once  I  put  my  finger  a 
moment  into  the  fire,  as  certain" Papists,  and  Protestants  too, 
have  done,  not  only  to  themselves,  but  to  their  disciples,  to  see 
if  it  would  be  so  very  dreadfully  painful ;  with  what  conclu- 
sions the  reader  may  judge.  .  .  .  Still,  I  could  not  keep  up  the 
excitement.  Why  should  I  ? — The  fear  of  pain  is  not  the  I 
fear  of  sin,  that  I  know  of ;  and,  indeed,  the  thing  was  unreal 
altogether  in  my  case,  and  my  heart,  my  common  sense  re- 1 
belled  against  it  again  and  again  ;  till  at  last  I  got  a  terrible 
whipping  for  taking  my  little  sister's  part,  and  saying  that  if  I 
she  was  to  die — so  gentle,  and  obedient,  and  affectionate  asl 
she  was — God  would  be  very  unjust  in  sending  her  to  hell-j 
lire,  and  that  I  was  quite  certain  He  would  do  no  such  thing — | 
unless  He  were  the  Devil :  an  opinion  which  I  have  since  seeni 
no  reason  to  change.  The  confusion  between  the  Ixing  oU 
Hell  and  the  King  of  Heaven  has  cleared  up,  thank  God/ 
since  then  I  I 

So  I  was  whipped  and  put  to  bed — the  whipping  altering 
my  secret  heart  just  about  as  much  as  the  dread  of  hell-fire 
did. 

I  speak  as  a  Christian  man — an  orthodox  Churchman  (if 
you  require  that  shibboleth).  Was  I  so  very  wrong  ?  What 
was  there  in  the  idea  of  religion  which  was  presented  to  me 
at  home  to  captivate  me  "?  What  was  the  use  of  a  child's 
hearing  of  "  God's  great  love  manifested  in  the  scheme  of  re- 
demption," when  he  heard,  in  the  same  breath,  that  the  effects 
of  that  redemption  were  practically  confined  only  to  one  hu- 
man being  out  of  a  thousand,  and  that  the  other  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  were  lost  and  damned  from  their  birth-hour 
to  all  eternity — not  only  by  the  absolute  will  and  reprobation 
of  God  (though  that  infernal  blasphemy  I  heard  often  enough), 
but  also,  putting  that  out  of  the  question,  by  the  mere  fact  of 
being  boi'n  of  Adam's  race.  And  this  to  a  generation  to  whom  | 
God's  love  shines  out  in  every  tree,  and  flower,  and  hedge-side 
tird ;  to  whom  the  daily  discoveries  of  science  are  revealing  . 


14  ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

that  love  in  every  microscopic  animalcule  which  peoples  ths 
stagnant  pool  !     This  to  working  men,  whose  craving  is  only 
lor  some  idea  which  shall  give  equal  hopes,  claims,  and  deliver- 
ances, to  all  mankind  alike  !      This  to  working  men,  who,  in 
the  smiles  of  their  innocent  children,  see  the  heaven  which 
they  have  lost — the  messages  of  baby-cherubs  made  in  God's 
own  image  !     This  to  me,  to  whom  every  butterfly,  every  look 
at  my  little  sister,  contradicted  the  lie  I     You  may  say  that 
such  thoughts  were  too  deep  for  a  child  ;  that  I  am  ascribing 
to  my  boyhood  the  skepticism  of  my  manhood ;  but  it  is  not 
so  ;   and  what  went  on  in  my  mind  goes  on  in  the  minds  of 
thousands.     It  is  the  cause  of  the  contempt  into  which  not 
merely  sectarian  Protestantism,  but  Christianity  altogether, 
has  fallen,  in  the  minds  of  the  thinking  workmen.    Clergymen, 
v.dio  anathematize  us  for  wandering  into  Unitarianism — you, 
you  have  driven  us  thither.     You  must  find  some  explanation 
'  of  the  facts  of  Christianity  more  in  accordance  with  the  truths 
I  which  we  do  know,  and  will  live  and  die  for,  or  you  can  never 
/  hope  to  make  us  Christians ;  or,  if  we  do  return  to  the  true 
i  fold,  it  will  be  as  I  returned,  after  long,  miserable  years  of 
!  darkling  error,  to  a  higher  truth  than  most  of  you  have  yet 
!  learned  to  preach. 

*  But  those  old  Jewish  heroes  did  fill  my  whole  heart  and 
i  soul.  I  learnt  from  them  lessons  which  I  never  wish  to  un- 
learn. Whatever  else  I  saw  about  them,  this  I  saw — that 
they  were  patriots,  deliverers  from  that  tyranny  and  injustice 
from  which  the  child's  heart — "child  of  the  devil"  though 
you  may  call  him — instinctively,  and,  as  I  believe,  by  a 
divine  inspiration,  revolts.  Moses  leading  his  people  out  of 
Egypt ;  Gideon,  Barak,  and  Samson,  slaying  their  oppressors  ; 
David  hiding  in  the  mountains  from  the  tyrant,  M'ith  his  little 
band  of  those  who  had  fled  from  the  oppressions  of  an  aristoc- 
racy of  Nabals ;  Jehu  executing  God's  vengeance  on  the  kinss 
— they  were  my  heroes,  my  models  ;  they  mixed  themselves 
up  with  the  dim  legends  about  the  Reformation  martyrs, 
Cromwell  and  Hampden,  Sidney  and  Monmouth,  which  I  had 
heard  at  my  mother's  knee.  Not  that  the  perennial  oppression 
of  the  masses,  in  all  ages  and  countries,  had  yet  risen  on  mc 
as  an  awl'ul,  torturing,  fixed  idea.  I  fancied,  poor  fool  !  that 
tyranny  was  the  exception,  and  not  the  rule.  But  it  Avas  the 
mere  sense  of  abstract  pity  and  justice  which  was  delighted  in 
me.  I  thought  that  these  were  old  fairy  tales,  such  as  never 
)ieed  be  realized  again.  I  learnt  otherwise  in  after  years. 
I  have  often  wondered  since,  why  all  can  not  read  the  sama 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        -.s 

lesson  as  I  did  in  those  old  Hebrew  Scriptures — that  they,  ol 
all  books  in  the  world,  have  been  wrested  into  proofs  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings,  the  eternal  necessity  of  slavery  I  But  the 
eye  only  sees  what  it  brings  with  it,  the  power  of  seeuig.  The 
upper  classes,  from  their  llrst  day  at  school  to  their  last  day  at 
college,  read  of  nothing  but  the  glories  of  Salamis  and  Mara- 
thon, of  freedom  and  of  the  old  republics.  And  what  comes 
of  it  ?  No  more  than  their  tutors  know  will  come  of  it,  when 
they  thrust  into  the  boys'  hands  books  which  give  the  lie  in 
every  page  to  their  own  political  superstitions. 

But  when  I  was  just  turned  of  thirteen,  an  altogether  new 
fairly-land  was  opened  to  me  by  some  missionary  tracts  and 
iournals,  which  were  lent   to  my  mother  by  the  ministers. 
Pacific  coral  islands   and    volcanoes,    cocoa-nut    groves    and 
bananas,  graceful  savages  with  paint  and  feathers — what  an 
El  Dorado  !     How  I  devoured  them  and  dreamt  of  them,  and 
went  there  in  fancy,  and  preached  small  sermons  as  I  lay  in 
bed  at  night  to  Tahitians  and  New  Zealanders,  though  I  con- 
fess my  spiritual  eyes  were,  just  as  my  physical  eyes  would 
have  been,  far  more  busy  with  the  scenery  than  with  the  souls 
of  my  audience.     However,  that  was  the  place  for  me,  I  saw 
clearly.      And  one  day,  I  recollect  it  well,  in  the  little  dingy,] 
/foul,  reeking,  twelve-foot-square  back  yard,  where  huge  smoky i' 
j  party-walls  shut  out  every  breath  of  air  and  almost  all  the 
'  light  of  heaven,  I  had  climbed  up  between  the  water-butt  and 
the  angle  of  the  wall  for  the  purpose  of  fishing  out  of  the 
dirty  fluid  which  lay  there,  crusted  with  soot  and  alive  with 
'  insects,  to  be  renewed  only  three  times  in  the  seven  days,  some 
/  of  the  great  larva?  and  kicking  monsters  which  made  up  a 
/   large  item  in  my  list  of  wonders :  all  of  a  sudden  the  horror 
of  the  place  came  over  me  ;  those  grim  prison-walls  above, 
.'     with  their  canopy  of  lurid  smoke  ;  the  dreary,  sloppy,  broken 
pavement ;  the  horrible  stench  of  the  stagnant  cesspools ;  the 
utter  want  of  form,  color,  life,  in  the  whole  place,  crushed  me 
down,  without  my  being  able  to  analyze  my  feelings  as  I  can  A 
now;  and  then  came  over  me  that  dream  of  Pacific  Islands,    I 
and  the  free,  open  sea  ;  and  I  slid  down  from  my  perch,  and 
bursting  into  tears  threw  myself  upon  my  knees  in  the  court, 
and  prayed  aloud  to  God  to  let  me  be  a  missionary. 

Half  fearfully  I  let  out  my  wishes  to  my  mother  when  sho 
came  home.  She  gave  me  no  answer ;  but,  as  I  found  out 
afterward — too  late,  alas  I  for  her,  if  not  for  me — she,  like 
Mary,  had  "  laid  up  all  these  things,  and  treasured  them  in 
her  heart." 


16        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

You  may  guess  then  my  delight  when,  a  few  days  after- 
ward, I  heard  that  a  real  live  missionary  was  coming  to  take 
tea  with  us.  A  man  who  had  actually  been  in  New  Zea- 
land ! — the  thought  was  rapture.  I  painted  him  to  myself 
over  and  over  again  ;  and  when,  after  the  first  bui'st  of  fancy, 
I  recollected  that  he  might  possibly  not  have  adopted  the 
native  costume  of  that  island,  or,  if  he  had,  that  perhaps  it 
would  look  too  strange  for  him  to  wear  it  about  London,  I 
fettled  within  myself  that  he  was  to  be  a  tall  venerable-looking 
man,  like  the  portraits  of  old  Puritan  divines  which  adorned 
our  day-room ;  and  as  I  had  heard  that  "  he  was  was  power- 
ful in  prayer,"  I  adorned  his  right-hand  with  that  mystic 
weapon  "all-prayer,"  with  which  Christian,  when  all  other 
means  had  failed,  finally  vanquishes  the  fiend — which  instru- 
ment, in  my  mind,  was  somewhat  after  the  model  of  an 
infernal  sort  of  bill  or  halbert — all  hooks,  edges,  spikes,  and 
crescents — which  I  had  passed,  shuddering,  once,  in  the 
hand  of  an  old  suit  of  armor  in  Wardour-street. 

He  came — and  with  him  the  two  ministers  who  often 
draidc  tea  with  my  mother  ;  both  of  whom,  as  they  played 
some  small  part  in  the  drama  of  my  after-life,  I  may  as  well 
describe  here.  The  elder  was  a  little,  sleek,  silver-haired  old 
man,  with  a  bland,  weak  face,  just  like  a  white  rabbit.  He 
loved  me,  and  I  loved  him  too,  lor  there  were  always  lollipops 
in  his  pocket  for  me  and  Susan.  Had  his  head  been  equal  to 
his  heart ! — but  what  has  been  was  to  be — and  the  dissenting 
clergy,  with  a  few  noble  exceptions  among  the  Independents, 
are  not  the  strong  men  of  the  day — none  know  that  better 
than  the  workmen.  The  old  man's  name  was  Bowyer.  The 
other,  Mr.  Wigginton,  was  ayotinger  ffiaii ;  tall,  grim,  tlark^ 
bilious,  with  a  narrow  forehead,  retreating  suddenly  from  his 
eyebrows  up  to  a  conical  peak  of  black  hair  over  his  ears. 
He  preached  "higher  doctrine,"  i.e.,  more  fatalist  and  anti- 
nomian  than  his  gentler  colleague — and,  having  also  a  sten- 
torian voice,  was  much  the  greater  favorite  at  the  chapel.  I 
hated  him — and  if  any  man  ever  deserved  hatred,  he  did. 

Well,  they  came,  My  heart  was  in  my  mouth  as  I  opened 
the  door  to  them,  and  sunk  back  again  to  the  very  lowest 
depths  of  my  inner  man  when  my  eyes  fell  on  the  face  and 
figure  of  the  missionary — a  squat,  red-faced,  pig-eyed,  low- 
browed man,  with  great  soft  lips  that  opened  back  to  his  very 
cars  ;  sensuality,  conceit,  and  cunning  marked  on  eveiy  feat- 
ure— an  iiniate  vulgarity,  I'rom  which  the  artisan  and  the 
child  recoil  with  an  instinct  as  true,  perhaps  truer,  than  that 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         17 

of  the  courtier,  showing  itself  in  every  tone  and  motion — I 
shrunk  into  a  corner,  so  crest-fallen  that  I  could  not  even  exert 
myself  to  hand  round  the  bread-and-butter,  for  which  I  pot 
duly  scolded  afterward.  Oh  I  that  man  I — how  he  bawled 
and  contradicted,  and  laid  down  the  law,  and  spoke  to  ray 
mother  iu  a  fondling,  patronizing  way,  which  made  me,  J 
knew  not  why,  boil  over  with  jealousy  and  indignation.  How 
he  filled  his  teacup  half  full  of  the  white  sugar  to  buy  which 
my  mother  had  curtailed  her  yesterday's  dinner — how  he 
drained  the  few  remaining  drops  of  the  three-pennyworth  of 
cream,  with  which  Susan  was  steahng  oft',  to  keep  it  as  an 
unexpected  treat  for  my  mother  at  breakfast  the  next  morn- 
ing— how  he  talked  of  the  natives,  not  as  St.  Paul  might  of 
liis  converts,  but  as  a  planter  might  of  his  slaves  ;  overlaying 
all  his  unintentional  confessions  of  his  own  greed  and  prosper- 
ity, with  cant,  flimsy  enough  for  even  a  boy  to  see  through, 
while  his  eyes  were  not  blinded  with  the  superstition  that  a 
man  must  be  pious  who  sufficiently  interlards  his  speech  with 
a  jumble  of  old  English  picked  out  of  our  translation  of  the 
New  Testament.  Such  was  the  man  I  saw.  I  don't  deny 
that  all  are  not  like  him.  T  believe  there  are  noble  men  oi' 
all  denominations,  doing  their  best  according  to  their  light, 
all  over  the  world  ;  but  such  was  one  I  saw — and  the  men 
who  are  sent  home  to  plead  the  missionary  cause,  whatever 
the  men  may  be  like  who  stay  behind  and  work,  are,  froni^ 
my  small  experience,  too  often  such.  It  appears  to  me  to  bc^ 
the  rule  that  many  of  those  who  go  abroad  as  missionaries,  go 
simply  because  they  are  men  of  such  inferior  powsrs  and  at- 
tainments that  if  they  staid  in  England  they  would  starve.   ,. 

Three  parts  of  his  conversation,  after  all,  was  made  up  of 
abuse  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Church  of  England,  not  fjr 
doing  nothing,  but  for  being  so  much  more  successful  than 
his  own  sect  ;  accusing  them,  in  the  same  breath,  of  being 
just  of  the  inferior  type  of  which  he  was  himself,  and  also  oi" 
being  mere  University  fine  gentlemen.  Really,  I  did  not 
wonder,  upon  hi^  own  showing,  at  the  savages  preferring  them 
to  him  ;  and  I  was  pleased  to  hear  the  old  white-headed 
minister  gently  interpose  at  the  end  of  one  of  his  tirades — 
"  We  must  not  be  jealous,  my  brother,  if  the  Establishment 
has  discovered  what  we,  I  hope,  shall  find  out  some  day,  that 
it  is  not  wise  to  draft  our  missionaries  from  the  ofiscouring  of 
the  ministry,  and  serve  God  with  that  which  costs  us  nothing 
except  the  expense  of  providing  for  them  beyond  seas." 

There  was  somewhat  of  a  roguish  twinkle  in  the  old  man's 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOKT. 


ej'e  as  he  said  it,  which  emboldened  me  to  whisper  a  questioi. 
to  him. 

"  Why  is  it,  sir,  that  in  old  times  the  heathens  used  to 
( rucify  the  missionaries  and  burn  them,  and  now  they  give 
them  beautiful  farms,  and  build  them  houses,  and  carry  them 
about  on  their  backs'?" 

The  old  man  seemed  a  little  puzzled,  and  so  did  the  com- 
pany, to  whom  he  smilingly  retailed  my  question. 

As  nobody  seemed  inclined  to  offer  a  solution,  I  ventured 
one  myself 

"  Perhaps  the  heathens  are  grown  better  than  they  used 
to  be?" 

flZClie  heart  of  man,"  answered  the  tall,  dark  minister,  "is, 
and  ever  was,  equally  at  enmity  with  Godjj 

"Then,  perhaps,"  I  ventured  again,  "what  the  mission- 
aries preach  now  is  not  quite  the  same  as  what  the  mission- 
aries used  to  preach  in  St.  Paul's  time,  and  so  the  heathens 
are  not  so  angry  at  it  ?" 

iNIy  mother  looked  thunder  at  me,  and  so  did  all  except  my 
white-headed  friend,  who  said,  gently  enough — 

"It  may  be  that  the  child's  words  come  from  God." 

Whether  they  did  or  not,  the  child  took  very  good  care  to 
speak  no  more  words  till  he  was  alone  with  his  mother ;  and 
then  finished  off  that  disastrous  evening  by  a  punishment  for 
the  indecency  of  saying,  before  his  little  sister,  that  he  thought 
it  "  a  great  pity  the  missionaries  taught  black  people  to  wear 
ugly  coats  and  trowsers  ;  they  must  have  looked  so  much 
handsomer  running  about  with  nothing  on  but  feathers  and 
strings  of  shells." 

So  the  missionary  dream  died  out  of  me,  by  a  foolish  and 
illogical  antipathy  enough  ;  though,  after  all,  it  was  a  child 
of  my  imagination  only,  not  of  my  heart ;  and  the  fancy, 
having  bred  it,  was  able  to  kill  it  also.  And  David  became 
my  ideal.  To  be  a  shepherd-boy,  and  sit  among  beautiful 
mountains,  and  sing  hymns  of  my  own  making,  and  kill  lions 
and  bears,  with  now  and  then  the  chance  of  a  stray  giant — 
what  a  glorious  life  I  And  if  David  slew  giants  with  a  sling 
and  a  stone,  why  should  not  I  ? — at  all  events,  one  ought  to 
know  how  ;  so  I  made  a  sling  out  of  an  old  garter  and  some 
siring,  and  began  to  practice  in  the  Httle  back-yard.  But 
my  first  shot  broke  my  neighbor's  window,  value  seven-pence, 
and  the  next  flew  back  in  my  face,  and  cut  my  head  open , 
80  I  was  sent  supperless  to  bed  for  a  week,  till  the  seven -pence 
had  been  duly  saved  out  of  my  hungry  stomach — and,  on  tha 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  (9 

whole,  I  found  the  hymn-writing  side  of  David's  character 
the  more  feasible  ;  so  I  tried,  and  with  much  braiusbeatinfr, 
committed  the  following  lines  to  a  scrap  of  dirty  paper.  And 
it  was  strangely  signiticant,  that  in  this,  my  first  attempt, 
there  was  an  instinctive  denial  of  the  very  doctrine  of  "  par- 
ticular redemption,"  which  I  had  been  hearing  all  my' life, 
and  an  instinctive  yearning  after  the  very  Being  in  whom  I 
had  been  told  I  had  "  no  part  nor  lot  "  till  I  was  "converted." 
Here  they  are.  I  am  not  ashamed  to  call  them — doggrel 
though  they  be — an  inspiration  from  Him  of  whom  they 
speak.     If  not  from  Him,  good  readers,  from  whom] 

Jesus,  He  loves  one  and  all; 
Jesus,  He  loves  children  small ; 
Their  souls  are  sitting  round  His  feet, 
On  high,  before  His  mercy-seat. 

When  on  earth  He  walked  in  shame, 
Children  small  unto  Him  came ; 
At  his  feet  they  knelt  and  prayed, 
On  their  heads  His  hands  He  laid. 

Came  a  spirit  on  them  then, 
Greater  than  of  mighty  men; 
A  spirit  gentle,  meek,  and  mild, 
A  spirit  good  for  king  and  child. 

Oh  !  that  spirit  give  to  me, 
Jesus,  Lord,  where'er  I  be  ! 

So— 

But  I  did  not  finish  them,  not  seeing  very  clearly  what  to 
do  with  that  spirit  when  I  obtained  it ;  for,  indeed,  it  seemed 
a  much  finer  thing  to  fight  material  ApoUyous  with  material 
swords  of  iron,  like  my  friend  Christian,  or  to  go  bear  and  lion 
hunting  with  David,  than  to  convert  heathens  by  meekness — 
at  least,  if  true  meekness  was  at  all  like  that  of  the  missionary 
whom  I  had  lately  seen. 

I  showed  the  verses  in  secret  to  ray  little  sister.  My 
mother  heard  us  singing  them  together,  and  extorted,  grimly 
enough,  a  confession  of  the  authorship.  I  expected  to  be 
punished  for  them  (I  was  accustomed  weekly  to  be  punished 
lor  all  sorts  of  deeds  and  words,  of  the  harmi'ulness  of  which  I 
had  not  a  notion).  It  was,  therefore,  an  agreeable  surprise 
when  the  old  minister,  the  next  Sunday  evening,  patted  my 
head,  and  praised  me  for  them. 

"  A  hopeful  sign  of  young  grace,  brother,"  said  he  to  the 
dark,  tall  man.      "May  we  behold  here  an  infant  Timothy  I" 

"  Bad  doctrine,  brother,  in  that  first  line — bad  doctriuo, 


20         ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

;   which  I  am  sure  he  did  not  learn  from  our  excellent  sistei 

ihere.  Remember,  my  boy,  henceforth,  that  Jesus  does  not 
love  one  and  all — not  that  I  am  angry  with  you.  The  carnal 
mind  can  not  be  expected  to  understand  divine  things,  any 
more  than  the  beasts  that  perish.  Nevertheless,  the  blessed 
J  message  of  the  Gospel  stands  true,  that  Christ  loves  none  but 

I  His  Bride,  the  Church.  His  merits,  my  poor  child,  extend  to 
none  but  the  elect.  Ah  I  my  dear  sister  Locke,  how  delight- 
ful to  think  of  the  narrow  way  of  discriminating  grace  ! 
How  it  enhances  the  believer's  view  of  his  own  exceeding 
privileges,  to  remember  that  there  be  few  that  be  saved  I" 

I  said  nothing.  I  thought  myself  only  too  lucky  to  escape 
so  well  I'rom  the  danger  of  having  done  any  thing  out  of  my 
own  head.  But  somehow  Susan  and  I  never  altered  it  when 
we  sang  it  to  ourselves. 

/  I  thought  it  necessary  for  the  sake  of  those  who  might  read 
my  story,  to  string  together  these  iew  scattered  recollections 
of  my  boyhood — to  give,  as  it  were,  some  sample  of  the 
cotyledon  leaves  of  my  young  life-plant,  and  of  the  soil  in 
which  it  took  root,  ere  it  was  transplanted — but  I  will  not 
forestall  my  sorrows.  After  all,  they  have  been  but  types  of 
the  woes  of  thousands  who  "  die  and  give  no  sign."  Those 
to  whom  the  struggles  of  every,  even  the  meanest,  human 
being  are  scenes  of  an  awful  drama,  every  incident  of  which 
is  to  be  noted  with  reverent  interest,  will  not  find  them  void 
of  meaning ;  while  the  life  which  opens  in  my  next  chapter 
is,  perhaps,  full  enough  of  mere  dramatic  interest  (and  whoso 
life  is  not,  were  it  but  truly  written  ?)  to  amuse  merely  as  a 
I  novel.  Ay,  grim  and  real  is  the  action  and  suffering  which 
[begins  with  my  next  page — as  you  yourself  would  have  found, 
ligh-born  reader  (if  such  chance  to  light  upon  this  story),  had 
pu  found  yourself  at  fifteen,  after  a  youth  of  convent-like 
seclusion,  settled,  apparently  for  life — in  a  tailor's  workshop. 

Ay — laugh !  we  tailors  can  quote  poetry  as  well  as  make 
your  court-dresses : 

You  sit  in  a  cloud  and  sing,  like  pictured  angels, 
And  say  the  world  runs  smooth — while  right  below 
Welters  the  black  fermenting  heap  of  griefs 
Whereon  your  state  is  built 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  TAILORS'  WORK-ROOM. 

Have  you  done  laughing  ?     Then  I  will  tell  you  how  I  ho 
thing  came  to  pass. 

My  father  had  a  brother,  who  had  steadily  risen  in  life,  in 
proportion  as  my  father  fell.  They  had  both  begun  life  in  a 
grocer's  shop.  My  father  saved  enough  to  marry,  when  of 
middle  age,  a  woman  of  his  own  years,  and  set  up  a  little 
shop,  where  there  were  far  too  many  such  already,  in  the 
hope — to  him,  as  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  quite  just  and  in- 
nocent— of  drawing  away  as  much  as  possible  of  his  neighbors' 
custom.  He  failed,  died — as  so  many  small  tradesmen  do — 
of  bad  debts  and  a  broken  heart,  and  left  us  beggars.  His 
brother,  more  prudent,  had  in  the  mean  time,  risen  to  be  fore- 
man ;  then  he  married,  on  the  strength  of  his  handsome  per- 
son, his  master's  blooming  widow ;  and  rose  and  rose,  year  by 
year,  till,  at  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  he  was  owner  of  a 
first-rate  grocery  establishment  in  the  city,  and  a  pleasant 
villa  near  Heme  Hill,  and  had  a  son  a  year  or  two  older  than 
myself,  at  King's  College  preparing  for  Oxford  and  the  Churclr- 
— that  being  nowadays  the  approved  method  of  converting 
a  tradesman's  son  into  a  gentleman,  whereof  let  artisans,  and 
gentlemen  also  take  note. 

My  aristocratic  readers — if  I  ever  get  any,  which  I  pray  God"7 
T  may — may  be  surprised  at  so  great  an  inequality  of  fortune  ' 
between  two  cousins;  but  the  thing  is  common  in  our  class. 
[n  the  higher  ranks,  a  diflerence  in  income  implies  none  in 
.-iducation  or  manners,  and  the  poor  "gentleman"  is  a  fit 
;ompanion  for  dukes  and  princes — thanks  to  the  old  usages 
if  Norman  chivalry,  whicli  after  all  were  a  democratic  protest 
jgainst  the  sovereignty,  if  not  of  rank,  at  least  of  money.  The 
Knight,  howev(3r  penniless,  M'as  the  prince's  equal,  even  his 
superior,  from  whose  hands  he  must  receive  knighthood ;  and 
thj  "squire  of  low  degree,"  who  honorably  earned  his  spurs, 
rose  also  into  that  guild,  Avhose  qualifications,  however  bar- 
baric were  still  higher  ones  than  any  which  the  pocket  gives. 
But  in  the  commercial  classes  money  most  truly  and  fearfully 
"makes  the  man."     A  (iiflerence  in  income,  as  you  go  loAver, 


22         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

makes  more  and  more  difference  in  the  supply  of  the  common 
necessaries  of  life ;  and  worse,  in  education  and  manners,  in 
all  which  polishes  the  man,  till  you  may  see  often  as  in  my 
case,  one  cousin  an  Oxford  undergraduate,  and  the  other  a 
tailor's  journeyman. 

My  uncle  one  day  came  down  to  visit  us,  resplendent  in  a 
black  velvet  waistcoat,  thick  gold  chain,  and  acres  of  shirt- 
front  ;  and  I  and  Susan  were  turned  to  feed  on  our  own  curi- 
osity and  awe  in  the  back-yard,  while  he  and  my  mother 
were  closeted  together  for  an  hour  or  so  in  the  living-room. 
When  he  was  gone,  my  mother  called  me  in,  and  with  eyes 
which  would  have  been  tearful  had  she  allowed  herself  such 
a  weakness  before  us,  told  me  very  solemnly  and  slowly,  as  if 
to  impress  upon  me  the  awfulness  of  the  matter,  that  I  was 
to  be  sent  to  a  tailor's  work-rooms  the  next  day. 

And  an  awful  stej)  it  was  in  her  eyes,  as  she  laid  her  hands 
on  my  head  and  murmured  to  herself,  "  Behold,  I  send  you 
forth  as  a  lamb  in  the  midst  of  wolves.  Be  ye,  therefore, 
wise  as  serpents,  and  harmless  as  doves."  And  then,  rising 
hastily  to  conceal  her  own  emotion,  fled  up-stairs,  where  we 
could  hear  her  throw  herself  on  her  knees  by  the  bedside,  and 
sob  piteously. 

That  evening  was  spent  dolefully  enough,  in  a  sermon  of 
warnings  against  all  manner  of  sins  and  temptations,  the  very 
names  of  which  I  had  never  heard,  but  to  which,  as  she  in- 
formed me,  I  was  by  my  fallen  nature  altogether  prone :  and 
right  enough  was  she  in  so  saying,  though,  as  often  happens, 
the  temptations  from  which  I  was  in  real  danger  were  just 
?uie  ones  of  which  she  had  no  notion — fighting  more  or  less 
lextinct  Satans,  as  Mr.  Carlyle  says,  and  quite  unconscious  of 
^Ithe  real,  modern,  man-devouring  Satan  close  at  her  elbow. 
N.  To  me,  in  spite  of  all  the  terror  which  she  tried  to  awaken 
in  me,  the  change  was  not  unv/elcome ;  at  all  events,  it 
promised  me  food  for  my  eyes  and  my  ears — some  escape  from 
the  narrow  cage  in  which,  though  1  hardly  dare  confess  it  tc 
myself,  I  was  beginning  to  pine.  Little  I  dreamt  to  what 
a  darker  cage  I  was  to  be  translated !  Not  that  I  accuse 
my  uncle  of  neglect  or  cruelty,  though  the  thing  was  alto- 
gether of  his  commanding.  He  was  as  generous  to  us  as  so- 
ciety required  him  to  be.  We  were  entirely  dependent  on 
him.  as  my  mother  told  me  then  lor  the  first  time,  for  support. 
And  had  he  not  a  right  to  dispose  of  my  person,  having  bought 
it  by  an  allowance  to  my  mother  of  five-and-twenty  pounds  a 
year  ?      I  did  not  forget  that  fact ;  the  thought  of  my  depend- 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET         23 

ence  on  him  rankled  in  me,  till  it  almost  bred  hatred  in  me 
to  a  man  who  had  certainly  never  done  or  meant  any  thing 
to  me  but  in  kindness.  For  what  could  he  make  me  but  a 
tailor,  or  a  shoemaker  ?  A  pale,  consumptive,  rickety,  weak- 
ly boy,  all  forehead  and  no  muscle — have  not  clothes  and 
ehoes  been  from  time  immemorial  the  appointed  work  of 
such  1  The  fact  that  that  weakly  frame  is  generally 
compensated  by  a  proportionally  increased  activity  of  brain, 
is  too  unimportant  to  enter  into  the  calculations  of  the  great 
King  Laissez-faire.  Well,  my  dear  Society,  it  is  you  that 
suffer  for  the  mistake,  after  all,  more  than  we.  If  you  do 
tether  your  cleverest  artisans  on  tailors'  shop-boards  and  cob- 
blers' benches,  and  the}'" — as  sedentary  folk  will — fall  a-think- 
iug,  and  come  to  strange  conclusions  thereby,  they  really  ought 
to  be  much  more  thankful  to  you  than  you  are  to  them.  If 
Thomas  Cooper  had  passed  his  first  five-and-twenty  years  at 
the  plough  tail  instead  of  the  shoemaker's  awl,  many  words 
would  have  been  left  unsaid  which,  once  spoken,  working- 
men  are  not  likely  to  forget 

With  a  beating  heart  I  shambled  along  by  my  mother's 
side  next  day  to  Mr.  Smith's  shop,  in  a  street  off  Piccadilly ; 
and  stood  by  her  side,  just  within  the  door,  waiting  till  some 
one  would  condescend  to  speak  to  us,  and  wondering  when 
the  time  would  come  when  I,  like  the  gentlemen  who  skip- 
ped up  and  down  the  shop,  should  shine  glorious  in  patent- 
leather  boc'.s,  and  a  blue  satin  tie  sprigged  with  gold. 

Two  personages,  both  equally  magnificent,  stood  talking 
with  their  backs  to  us  ;  and  my  mother,  in  doubt,  like  myself 
as  to  which  of  them  was  the  tailor,  at  last  summoned  up 
courage  to  address  the  wrong  one,  by  asking  if  he  were 
Mr.  Smith. 

The  person  addressed  answered  by  a  most  polite  smile  and 
bow,  and  assured  her  that  he  had  not  that  honor ;  while  the 
other  he-he'ed,  evidently  a  little  flattered  by  the  mistake,  and 
then  uttered  in  a  tremendous  voice  these  words — 

"  I  have  nothing  for  you,  my  good  woman — go.  Mr. 
Elliot  I  how  did  you  come  to  allow  these  people  to  get  into 
the  establishment  ?" 

"My  name  is  Locke,  sir,  and  I  was  to  bring  my  son  nere 
this  morning." 

"  Oh — ah  I — Mr.  Elliot,  see  to  these  persons.  As  I  was 
saying,  my  lard,  the  crimson  velvet  suit,  about  thirty-five 
guineas.  By-thc-by,  that  coat  ours  ?  I  thought  so — idea 
grand  and  light — masses  well  broken — very  fine  chiaroscuro 


24         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

about  the  whole — an  aristocratic  wrinkle  just  above  the  hip* 
— which  I  flatter  myself  no  one  but  myself  and  my  friend  Mr. 
Cooke  really  do  understand.  The  vapid  smoothness  of  the 
door  dummy,  my  lard,  should  be  confined  to  the  regions  of  the 
Strand.  Mr.  Elliot,  where  are  you  ?  Just  be  so  good  as  to 
show  his  lardship  that  lovely  new  thing  in  drab  and  bleu 
foncee.  Ah  1  your  lardship  can't  wait.  Now,  my  good  woman, 
is  this  the  young  man  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  my  mother:  "and — and — God  deal  so  with 
you,  sir,  as  you  deal  with  the  widow  and  the  orphan." 

"Oh — ah — that  will  depend  very  much,  I  should  say,  on 
how  the  widow  and  the  orphan  deal  with  me.  Mr.  Elliot, 
take  this  person  into  the  office  and  transact  the  little  formal- 
ities with  her.  Jones,  take  the  young  man  up-stairs  to  the 
work-room." 

I  stumbled  after  INIr.  Jones  up  a  dark,  narrow  iron  stair- 
case till  we  emerged  through  a  trap-door  into  a  garret  at  the 
top  of  the  house.  I  recoiled  with  disgust  at  the  scene  before 
me  ;  and  here  I  was  to  work — perhaps  through  life  I  A  low 
lean-to  room,  stifling  me  with  the  combined  odors  of  human 
breath  and  perspiration,  stale  beer,  the  sweet  sickly  smell  of 
gin,  and  the  sour  and  hardly  less  disgusting  one  of  new  cloth. 
On  the  floor,  thick  with  dust  and  dirt,  scraps  of  stuff"  and  ends 
of  thread,  sat  some  dozen  haggard,  untidy,  shoeless  men,  with 
a  mingled  look  of  care  and  recklessness  that  made  me  shudder. 
The  windows  were  tight  closed  to  keep  out  the  cold  winter 
air  ;  and  the  condensed  breath  ran  in  streams  down  the  panes, 
checkering  the  dreary  out-look  of  chimney  tops  and  smoke. 
The  conductor  handed  me  over  to  one  of  the  men. 

"Here,  Crossthwaite,  take  this  younker  and  make  a  tailor 
of  him.  Keep  him  next  you,  and  prick  him  up  with  your 
needle  if  he  shirks." 

He  disappeared  down  the  trap-door,  and  mechanically,  as 
if  in  a  drearn,  I  sat  down  by  the  man  and  listened  to  his 
instructions,  kindly  enough  bestowed.  But  I  did  not  remain 
in  peace  two  minutes.  A  burst  of  chatter  rose  as  the  fore- 
man vanished,  and  a  tall,  bloated,  sharp-nosed  young  man 
next  me  bawled  in  my  ear, 

"I  say,  young  'un,  fork  out  the  tin  and  pay  your  footing  at 
Conscrumption  Hospital  I" 
"  What  do  you  mean  V 

"'Aint  he  just  green? — Down  with  the  stumpy — a  tizsy 
for  a  pot  of  half-and-half " 
"  I  never  drink  beer." 


ALTON  LOCKF,,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        2t 

'  Then  never  do,"  whispered  the  man  at  my  side;  "as 
uro  as  hell's  hell,  it's  your  only  chance." 

There  was  a  fierce,  deep  earnestness  in  the  tone  which  made 
me  look  up  at  the  speaker,  but  the  other  instantly  chimed  in, 

'•Oh,  yer  dont,  don't  yer,  my  young  Father  Mathy  I  then 
yer'll  soon  learn  it  here  if  yer  want  to  keep  yer  victuals 
down." 

"And  I  have  promised  to  take  ray  wages  home  to  my 
mother." 

"  O  criminy  I  hark  to  that,  my  coves  !  here's  a  chap  as  is 
going  to  take  the  blunt  home  to  his  mammy." 

"  T'aint  much  of  it  the  old  un'll  see,"  said  another.  "Ven 
yer  pockets  it  at  the  Cock  and  Bottle,  my  kiddy,  yer  won't 
find  much  of  it  left  o'  Sunday  mornings." 

"Don't  his  mother  know  he's  out?"  asked  another;  "and 
won't  she  knoAV  it — 

Ven  he's  sitting  in  his  glory 
Half-price  at  the  Victory. 

Oh  ;  no,  ve  never  mentions  her — her  name  is  never  heard. 
Certainly  not,  by  no  means.     Why  should  it  1" 

"  Well,  if  yer  won't  stand  a  pot,"  quoth  the  tall  man,  "  I 
will,  that's  all,  and  blow  temperance.  'A  short  life  and  a 
merry  one,'  says  the  tailor, 

The  mini-sters  talk  a  great  deal  about  port, 
And  they  makes  Cape  wine  very  dear, 

But  blow  their  hi"s  if  ever  they  tries 
To  deprive  a  poor  cove  of  his  beer. 

Here,  Sam,  run  to  the  Cock  and  Bottle  for  a  pot  of  half-and 
half  to  my  score." 

A  thin,  pale  lad  jumped  up  and  vanished,  while  my  tor- 
mentor turned  to  me  : 

"  I  say,  young  'un,  do  you  know  why  we're  nearer  heaven 
here  than  our  neighbors?" 

"  I  shouldn't  have  thought  so,"  ar.swered  I  with  a  naive/e 
which  raised  a  laugh,  and  dashed  the  tall  man  for  a  moment. 

"  Yer  don't  1  then  I'll  tell  yer.  Acause  we're  atop  of 
the  house  in  the  first  place,  and  next  place  yer'll  die  here  six 
months  sooner  nor  if  yer  Avorked  in  the  room  below.  'Aint 
that  logic  and  science.  Orator  ?"  appealing  to  Crossthwaite. 

"  Wliy  ?"  asked  I. 

"  Acause  you  get  all  the  other  floors'  stinks  up  here,  as 
well  as  your  own.  Concentrated  essence  of  man's  flesh,  is 
this  here  as  you're  a-breathinfr.   .  Cellar  work-room  we  calls 

B 


B6  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OLT. 

Rheumatic  Ward,  because  of  the  damp.  Ground-floor'a 
Fever  Ward — them  as  don't  get  typhus  gets  dysentery,  and 
them  as  don't  get  dysentery  gets  typhus — your  nose  'd  teil 
yer  why  if  you  opened  the  back  windy.  First  floor's  Ashrny 
Ward — don't  you  hear  'nm  now  through  the  cracks  in  the 
boards,  a-puffing  away  like  a  nest  of  young  locomotives  ? 
And  this  here  more  august  and  upper-crust  cockloft  is  the 
Conscrumptive  Hospital.  First  you  begins  to  cough,  then 
you  proceed  to  expectorate — spittoons,  as  you  see,  perwided 
free  gracious  for  nothing — fined  a  kivarten  if  you  spits  on  the 
floor. 

Then  your  cheeks  they  grows  red,  and  your  nose  it  grows  thin, 
And  your  bones  they  sticks  out,  till  they  comes  through  your  skin . 

and  then,  when  you've  sufficiently  covered  the  poor  dear 
shivering  bare  backs  of  the  hairystocracy, 

Die,  die,  die, 

Away  you  fly, 

Your  soul  is  in  the  sky  ! 

as  the  hinspired  Shakspeare  wittily  remarks." 

And  the  ribald  lay  down  on  his  back,  stretched  himself  out 
and  pretended  to  die  in  a  fit  of  coughing,  which  last  was 
alas  I  no  counterfeit,  while  poor  I,  shocked  and  bewildered,  let 
my  tears  falls  fast  upon  my  knees. 

"  Fine  him  a  pot  I"  roared  one,  "  for  talking  about  kicking 
the  bucket.  He's  a  nice  young  man  to  keep  a  cove's  spirits 
up,  and  talk  about  '  a  short  life  and  a  merry  one.'  Here 
comes  the  heavy.  Hand  it  here  to  take  the  taste  of  that  fel 
low's  talk  out  of  my  mouth." 

"Well,  my  young  'un,"  rc-commenced  my  tormentor,  "  and 
how  do  you  like  your  company?" 

"Leave  the  boy  alone,"  growled  Crossthwaite ;  "don't 
you  see  he's  crying?" 

"  Is  that  any  thing  good  to  eat  ?  Give  me  some  on  it  if 
it  is — it'll  save  me  washing  my  face."  And  he  took  hold  of 
my  hair  and  pulled  my  head  back. 

"I'll  tell  you  what.  Jemmy  Downes,"  said  Crossthwaite, 
in  a  voice  which  made  him  draw  back,  "if  you  don't  drop 
that,  I'll  give  you  such  a  taste  of  my  tongue  as  shall  tura 
you  blue." 

"You'd  better  try  it  on  then.  Do — only  just  now — if  you 
please." 

"  lie  quiet,  you  fool  I"  said  another.     "  You're  a  pretty  fel 


ALTON  LOCKF-,  TAILOR  AND  POET 


27 


(o\v  lo  cliaff  the  orator.     He'll  slang  you  up  the  chimney 
aibre  you  can  get  your  shoes  on." 

"Fine  him  a  kivarten  for  quarreling,"  cried  another  ;  and 
the  bully  subsided  into  a  minute's  silence,  after  a  sotto  voce — 
"  Blow  temperance,  and  blow  all  Chartists,  sav  I  I"  and  then 
delivered  himself  of  his  feelings  in  a  doggrel  song  : 

Some  folks  leads  coves  a.  dance. 

With  their  pledge  of  temperance, 
And  their  plans  for  donkey  sociaiion ; 

And  their  pocket-fulls  they  crams 

By  their  patriotic  flams, 
And  then  swears  'lis  for  the  good  of  the  natio;i. 

But  I  don't  care  two  inions 

For  political  opinions, 
V/hile  I  can  stand  ray  heavy  and  my  quartern ; 

For  to  drown  dull  care  within, 

In  baccy,  beer,  and  gin, 
Is  the  prime  of  a  working-tailor's  fortin ! 

"  There's  common  sense  for  yer  now  ;  hand  the  pot  here." 

I  recollect  nothing  more  of  that  day,  except  that  I  bent 
myself  to  my  work  with  assiduity  enough  to  earn  praises 
from  Crossthwaite.  It  was  to  be  done,  and  I  did  it.  The 
oidy  virtue  I  ever  possessed  (if  virtue  it  be)  is  the  power  of 
absorbing  my  whole  heart  and  mind  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
moment,  however  dull  or  trivial,  if  there  be  good  reason  why 
it  should  be  pursued  at  all. 

I  owe,  too,  an  apology  to  ray  readers  for  introducing  all 
thig_nbaldry.  God  knows  it  is  as  little  toTiiv  taste  as  it  can ' 
T^elo  theirs,  but  the  J,luuo;_exjsts  ;  and  those  who  live,  if  not 
by,  yet  still  beside  such  a  statToT  things,  ought  to  know  what 
the  men  are  like,  to  whose  labor,  ay,  life-blood,  they  owe  their 
luxuries.  They  are  "their  brothers'  keepers,"  let  thern  deny 
it  as  they  will.  Thank  God,  many  are  finding  that  out  ; 
and  the  morals  of  the  working-tailors,  as  well  as  of  other 
classes  of  artisans,  are  rapidly  improving  :  a  change  which 
has  been  brought  about  partly  by  the  wisdom  and  kindness 
of  a  few  master-tailors,  who  have  built  workshops  fit  for 
human  beings.,  and  have  resolutely  stood  out  against  the 
iniquitous  and  destructive  alterations  in  the  system  of  employ- 
ment. Among  them  I  may,  and  will,  -whether  they  like  it 
or  not,  make  honorable  mention  of  Mr.  Willis,  of  St.  James's- 
ftreet,  and  Mr.  Stultz,  of  Bond-street. 

But  uiue-lenths  ol"  the  improvement  has  been  owing,  not  to 
the  masters,  but  to  the  men  themselves ;  and  who  among- 


23         ALTON  LOCKL',  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

tliem,  my  aristocratic  readers,  do  you  think,  have  been  the 
great  preachers  and  practicers  of  temperance,  thrift,  chastity, 
self-respect,  and  education  ?  AVho  1  shriek  not  in  your  Bel- 
gravian  saloons — the  Chartists  ;  the  communist  Chartists ; 
upon  whom  you  and  your  venal  press  heap  every  kind  of 
cowardly  execration  and  ribald  slander.  You  have  found  out 
many  things,  since  Feterloo  ;  add  that  fact  to  the  number. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  I  did  not  tell  my  mother  into 
what  a  pandemonium  I  had  fallen,  and  get  her  to  deliver 
me;  but  a  delicacy,  which  was  not  all  evil  kept  me  back.  I 
shrank  from  seeming  to  dislike  to  earn  my  daily  bread  ;  and 
still  more  from  seeming  to  object  to  wdiat  she  had  appointed 
(or  me.  Her  will  had  been  always  law;  it  seemed  a  deadly 
sin  to  dispute  it.  I  took  for  granted,  too,  that  she  knew  what 
the  place  was  like,  and  that,  therefore,  it  must  be  right  for 
me.  And  when  I  came  home  at  night,  and  got  back  to  my 
beloved  missionary  stories,'  I  gathered  materials  enough  to 
occupy  my  thoughts  during  the  next  day's  work,  and  make 
me  blind  and  deaf  to  all  the  evil  around  me.  My  mother, 
poor  dear  creature,  would  have  denounced  my  day-dreams 
sternly  enough,  had  she  known  of  their  existence :  but  were 
they  not  holy  angels  from  heaven?  guardians  sent  by  that 
Father,  Avhom  I  had  been  taught  7iot  to  believe  in,  to  shield 
my  senses  from  pollution  ? 

I  was  ashamed,  too,  to  mention  to  my  mother  the  wicked- 
ness which  I  saw  and  heard.  With  the  delicacy  of  an  inno- 
cent boy,  I  almost  imputed  the  very  Avitnessing  of  it  as  a  sin 
to  myself;  and  soon  I  began  to  be  ashamed  of  more  than  the 
mere  sitting  by  and  hearing.  I  found  myself  gradually  learn- 
ing slang  insolence,  laughing  at  coarse  jokes,  taking  part  in 
angry  conversations ;  my  moral  tone  was  gi'adually  becoming 
lower ;  but  yet  the  habit  of  prayer  remained,  and  every  night 
at  my  bedside,  when  1  prayed  to  "  be  converted,  and  made  a 
child  of  God,"  I  prayed  that  the  same  mercy  might  be  ex- 
tended to  my  fellow- workmen,  "if  they  belonged  to  the  num- 
ber of  the  elect."  Those  prayers  may  have  been  answered  in 
a  wider  and  deeper  sense  than  I  then  thought  of 

But,  altogether,  I  felt  myself  in  a  most  distracted,  rudderless 
state.  My  mother's  advice  I  felt  daily  less  and  less  inclined 
to  ask.  A  gulf  was  opening  between  us :  we  were  moving 
in  two  diflerent  worlds,  and  she  saw  it,  and  imputed  it  to  me 
as  a  sin ;  and  was  the  more  cold  to  me  by  day,  and  prayed  for 
rac  (as  I  knew  afterward)  the  more  passionately  while  1 
slcpt>     But  help  or  teaf^lior  I  had  none.     I  knew  not  that 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AM)  fonT.         -,'3 

I  had  a  Father  in  Heaven.  How  could  he  bo  my  Father  till 
I  was  converted  ?  I  was  a  child  of  the  Utvil  they  told  me  ; 
and  now  and  then  I  felt  inclined  to  take  them  at  their  word, 
and  behave  like  one.  No  sympathizing  iiice  looked  on  me 
out  of  the  wide  heaven — ofT  the  wide  earth,  none.  I  was  all 
boiling  with  new  hopes,  new  temptations,  new  passions,  new 
sorrows,  and  "  I  looked  to  the  right  hand  and  to  the  left,  and 
no  man  cared  ibr  my  soul." 

I  had  felt  myself  from  the  first  strangely  drawn  toward 
Crossthwaite,  carefully  as  he  seemed  to  avoid  vne,  except  to 
give  me  business  directions  in  the  work-room.  He  alone  had 
shown  me  any  kindness;  and  he,  too,  alone  was  untainted 
with  the  sin  around  him.  Silent,  moody,  and  pre-occupied, 
he  was  yet  the  king  of  the  room.  His  opinion  was  alwaj's 
asked,  and  listened  to.  His  eye  always  cowed  the  ribald  and 
the  blasphemer;  his  songs,  when  he  rarely  broke  out  into 
merriment,  were  always  rapturously  applauded.  P»'Ien  hated, 
and  yet  respected  him.  I  shrank  from  him  at  first,  Avhen  I 
heard  him  called  a  Chartist;  for  my  dim  notions  of  that  class 
were,  that  they  were  a  very  wicked  set  of  people,  who  want- 
ed to  kill  all  the  soldiers  and  policemen,  and  respectable  peo- 
ple, and  rob  all  the  shops  of  their  contents.  But  Chartist  or 
none,  Crossthwaite  fascinated  me.  I  often  found  myself  neg- 
lecting my  work  to  study  his  lace.  I  liked  him,  too,  because 
he  was  as  I  was — small,  pale,  and  weakly.  He  might  have 
been  five-and-twenty ;  but  his  looks,  like  those  of  too  many  a 
working-man,  were  rather  those  of  a  man  of  forty.  Wild 
gray  eyes  gleamed  out  from  under  huge  knitted  brows,  and 
a  perpendicular  wall  of  brain,  too  large  for  his  puny  body. 
He  was  not  only,  I  soon  discovered,  a  water-drinker,  but  a 
strict  vegetarian  also;  to  which,  perhaps,  he  owed  a  great 
deal  of  the  almost  preternatural  clearness,  volubility  and  sens- 
itiveness of  his  mind.  But  whether  from  his  ascetic  habits, 
or  the  unhealthiness  of  his  trade,  the  marks  of  ill-health  were 
upon  him;  and  his  sallow  cheek,  and  ever-working  lip,  pro- 
claimed too  surely — 

The  fiery  soul  which,  working  out  its  way, 
.  Fretted  the  pigmy  body  to  decay; 
And  o'er  informed  the  tenement  of  clay. 

I  longed  to  open  my  heart  to  him.  Instinctively  I  felt 
that  he  was  a  kindred  spirit.  Ol'ten,  turning  round  suddenly 
in  the  work-room,  I  caught  him  watching  me  with  an  ex- 
pression which  seemed  to  say,  "  Poor  boy,  and  art  thou  t>u 


30         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

one  of  us?  Hast  thou  too  to  fight  "with  poverty  and  guide- 
lessness,  and  the  cravings  of  an  unsatisfied  intellect,  as  I  have 
done  I"  But  when  I  tried  to  speak  to  him  earnestly,  his 
manner  was  peremptory  and  repellent.  It  was  well  lor  me 
that  so  it  was — well  for  me  I  see  now,  that  it  was  not  from 
him  my  mind  received  the  first  lessons  in  self-development. 
For  guides  did  come  to  me  in  good  time,  though  not  such, 
perhaps,  as  either  my  mother  or  my  readers  would  have  chosen 
for  me. 

My  great  desire  now  was  to  get  knowledge.  By  getting 
that  I  fancied,  as  most  self-educated  men  are  apt  to  do,  I 
should  surely  get  wisdom.  Books,  I  thought  would  tell  me 
all  I  needed.  Cut  where  to  get  the  books'?  And  which?  I 
had  exhausted  our  small  stock  at  home;  I  was  sick  and  tired, 
without  knowing  why,  of  their  narrow,  conventional  view  of 
every  thing.  After  all,  I  had  been  reading  them  all  along 
not  lor  their  doctrines  but  for  their  facts,  and  knew  not  where 
to  find  more  except  in  forbidden  paths.  I  dare  not  ask  my 
mother  for  books,  for  I  dare  not  confess  to  her  that  religious 
ones  were  just  what  I  did  not  want ;  and  all  history,  poetry, 
science,  I  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  spoken  of  as  "carnal 
learning,  human  philosophy,"  more  or  less  diabolic  and  ruin- 
ous to  the  soul,  foo,  as  usually  happens  in  this  life,  "  by  the 
law  was  the  knowledge  of  sin,"  and  unnatural  restrictions  on 
the  .development  of  the  human  spirit  only  associated  with 
guilt  of  conscience,  what  ought  to  have  been  an  innocent  and 
necessary  blessing. 

My  poor  mother,  not  singular  in  her  mistake,  had  sent  me 
forth,  out  of  an  unconscious  paradise  into  the  evil  world,  with- 
out allowing  me  even  the  sad  strength  which  comes  from  eat- 
ing of  the  tree  of  knov/ledge  of  good  and  evil ;  she  expected  in 
mc  the  innocence  of  the  dove,  as  if  that  was  possible  on  such 
an  earth  as  this,  without  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  to  sup- 
port it.  She  Ibrbade  me  strictly  to  stop  and  look  into  the 
windows  of  print  shops,  and  I  strictly  obeyed  her.  But  she 
Ibrbade  me,  too,  to  read  any  book  which  I  had  not  first  shown 
her ;  and  that  restriction,  reasonable  enough  in  the  abstract, 
practically  meant,  in  the  case  of  a  poor  boy  like  myself,  read- 
ing no  books  at  all.  And  then  came  my  first  act  of  disobedi- 
ence, the  parent  of  many  more.  Bitterly  have  I  repented  it, 
and  bitterly  been  punished.  Yet,  strange  contradiction  I  I 
dare  not  wish  it  undone.  But  such  is  the  great  law  of  lifii. 
Punished  for  our  sins  we  surely  are  ;  and  yet  how  often  they 
'xioome  our  blessings,  teachin"-  us  that  which  nothing  vUc  can 


ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  31 

teach  us  I  Nothing  else  ?  One  says  so.  Ilich  parents,  I 
suppose,  say  so,  when  they  send  their  sons  to  pubhc  sehool.s 
"to  learn  life."  We  working-men  have  too  often  no  other 
teacher  than  our  own  errors  But  surely,  surely,  the  rich 
ought  to  have  been  able  to  discover  some  mode  of  education 
in  which  knowledge  may  be  acquired  without  the  price  of 
conscience.  Yet  they  have  .not;  and  we  must  not  complain 
of  them  for  not  giving  such  a  one  to  the  working-man,  when 
they  have  not  yet  even  given  it  to  their  own  children. 

In  a  street  through  which  I  used  to  walk  homeward  was 
an  old  book  shop,  piled  and  fringed  outside  and  in  with  books 
of  every  age,  size,  and  color.  And  here  I  at  last  summoned 
courage  to  stop,  and  timidly  and  stealthily  taking  out  some 
volume  whose  title  attracted  me,  snatch  hastily  a  few  pages 
and  hasten  on,  half  fearful  of  being  called  on  to  purchase,  half 
ashamed  of  a  desire  which  I  fancied  every  one  else  consider- 
ed as  unlawful  as  my  mother  did.  Sometimes  I  was  lucky 
enough  to  find  the  same  volume  several  days  running,  and  to 
take  up  the  subject  where  I  had  left  it  off;  and  thus  I  con- 
trived to  hurry  through  a  great  deal  of  "  Childe  Harold," 
"Lara,"  and  the  "  Corsair" — a  new  world  of  wonders  to  me. 
They  fed,  those  poems,  both  my  health  and  my  diseases ;  while 
they  gave  me,  little  of  them  as  I  could  understand,  a  thou- 
sand new  notions  about  scenery  and  man,  a  sense  of  poetic 
melody  and  luxuriance  as  yet  utterly  unknown.  They  chimed 
in  with  all  my  discontent,  my  melancholy,  my  thirst  after  any 
life  of  action  and  excitement,  however  frivolous,  insane,  or 
even  worse.  I  forgot  the  Corsair's  sinful  trade  in  his  free  and 
daring  life  ;  rather,  I  honestly  eliminated  the  bad  element — 
in  which,  God  knows,  I  took  no  delight — and  kept  the  good 
one.  However  that  might  be,  the  innocent,  guilty  pleasure 
grew  on  me  day  by  day.  Innocent  because  human — guilty, 
because  disobedient.     But  have  I  not  paid  the  penalty  ? 

One  evening,  however,  I  fell  accidentally  on  a  new  book — -^ 
"  The  Life  and  Poems  of  J.  Bethune."     I  opened  the  story  i 
pf  his  life — became  interested,  absorbed — and  there  I  stood,  (/  •  (7 
I  know  not  how  long,  on  the  greasy  pavement,  heedless  of  the 
passers  who  thrust  me  right  and  left,  reading  by  the  flaring 
gas-light  that  sad  history  of  labor,  sorrow,  and  death.       How 
the  Highland  cotter,  in  spite  of  disease,  penury,  starvation  it- 
self and  the  daily  struggle  to  earn  his  bread  by  digging  and 
ditching,  educated  himself — how  he  toiled  unceasingly  with 
his  hands — how  he  wrote  his  poems  in  secret  on  dirty  scraps 
of  paper  and  old  leaves  of  books — how  thus  he  wore  himself 


32  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POF.T 

out,  manful  and  godly,  "  bating  not  a  jot  of  heart  or  hope,* 
till  the  weak  flesh  would  bear  no  more ;  and  the  noble  spirit, 
unrecognized  by  the  lord  of  the  soil,  returned  to  God  who  gave 
it.  I  seemed  to  see  in  his  history  a  sad  presage  of  my  own. 
If  he,  stronger,  more  self-restrained,  more  righteous  far  than 
over  I  could  be,  had  died  thus  unknown,  unassisted,  in  the 
stern  battle  with  social  disadvantages,  what  must  be  my  lot  ? 

And  tears  of  sympathy,  rather  than  of  selfish  fear,  fell  fast 
upon  the  book. 

A  harsh  voice  from  the  inner  darkness  of  the  shop  startled 
me. 

"  Hoot,  laddie,  ye'll  better  no  spoil  my  books  wi'  greeting 
»wer  them." 

I  replaced  the  book  hastily,  and  was  hurrying  on,  but  the 
same  voice  called  me  back  in  a  more  kindly  tone. 

"  Stop  a  wee,  my  laddie.  I'm  no  angered  wi'  ye.  Come 
in,  and  we'll  just  ha'  a  bit  crack  thcgither." 

I  went  in,  for  there  w^as  a  geniality  in  the  tone,  to  which  I 
was  unaccustomed,  and  something  whispered  to  me  the  hope 
of  an  adventpre,  as  indeed  it  proved  to  be,  if  an  event  deserves 
that  name  which  decided  the  course  of  my  whole  destiny. 

"What  war  ye  greeting -about,  then?  What  was  the 
book  V 

"  '  Bethune's  Life  and  Poems,'  sir,"  I  said.  "  And  cer- 
tainly they  did  allect  me  very  much." 

"Aflect  ye?  Ah,  Johnnie  Bethune,  puir  fellow  I  Ye 
maunna  take  on  about  sic  like  laddies,  or  ye'll  greet  your  e'en 
out  o'  your  head.  It's  mony  a  braw  man  beside  Johnnie 
Bethune  has  gane  Johnnie  Bethune's  gate." 

Though  unaccustomed  to  the  Scotch  accent,  I  couJd  make 
out  enough  of  this  gpeech  to  be  in  nowise  consoled  by  it.  But 
the  old  man  turned  the  conversation  by  asking  me  abruptly 
my  name,  and  trade,  and  family. 

"  Hum,  hum,  widow,  eh  ?  puir  body  I  work  at  Smith's 
shop,  eh  ?  Ye'll  ken  John  Crossthwaite,  then  ?  ay  ?  hum 
hum  ;  an'  ye're  desirous  o'  reading  books,  vara  weel — let's 
gee  your  cawpabilities." 

And  he  pulled  me  into  the  dim  light  of  the  little  back  win- 
dow, shoved  back  his  spectacles,  and  peering  at  me  from  un- 
derneath them,  began,  to  my  great  astonishment,  to  feel  my 
head  all  over. 

"  Hum,  hum,  a  vara  gude  forehead — vara  good  indeed. 
Causative  organs  large,  perceptive,  ditto.  Imagination  super- 
abundant— mun  be  heeded.     Benevolence,  conscientiousness,, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         35 

ditto,  ditto.  Caution — no — that — large — might  be  devel- 
oped," with  a  quiet  chuckle,  "  under  a  gude  Scot's  education. 
Just  turn  your  head  into  profile,  laddie.  Hum,  hum.  Back 
o'  the  head  a'thegither  defective.  Firmness  sma' — love  of 
approbation  unco  big.  Beware  o'  leeing,  as  3'e  live  ;  ye'U 
need  it.  Philoprogenitiveness  fj^ude.  Ye'll  be  fond  o'  bairns, 
T'm  guessing  V 

'^  Of  what?" 

"  Children,  laddie— children." 

"  Very,"  answered  I,  in  utter  dismay,  at  what  seemed  to 
me  a  magical  process  for  getting  at  all  my  secret  failings. 

"  Hum,  hum  I  Amative  and  combative  organs  sma' — a 
general  want  o'  healthy  animalism,  as  my  freen'  Mr.  Deville 
wad  say.     And  ye  want  to  read  books  ? 

"  Vara  weel ;  then  books  I'll  lend  ye,  after  I've  had  a 
crack  wi'  Crossthwaite  aboot  ye,  gin  I  find  his  opinion  o'  ye 
satisfactory.  Come  to  me  the  day  after  to-morrow.  An' 
mind,  here  are  my  rules :  a'  damage  done  to  a  book  to  be 
paid  for,  or  na  mair  books  lout ;  ye'll  mind  to  take  no  books 
without  leave  ;  specially  ye'll  mind  no  to  read  in  bed  o' 
nights — industrious  folks  ought  to  be  sleepin'  betimes,  an'  I'd 
no  be  a  party  to  burning  puir  weans  in  their  beds  ;  and 
lastl)^  ye'll  observe  not  to  read  mair  than  five  books  at 
once." 

I  assured  him  that  I  thought  such  a  thing  impossible ;  but 
he  smiled  in  his  saturnine  way,  and  said, 

"  We'll  see  this  day  fortnight.  Now,  then,  I've  observed 
ye  for  a  month  past  over  that  aristocrat  Byron's  poems.  And 
I'm  willing  to  teach  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot — but  no  to 
shoot  itself;  so  ye'll  just  leave  alane  that  vinegary,  soul- 
destroying  trash,  and  I'll  lend  ye,  gin  I  hear  a  gude  report  of 
ye,  '  The  Paradise  Lost,'  o'  John  Milton — a  gran'  classic 
model ;  and  for  the  doctrine  o't,  it's  just  aboot  as  gude  as 
ye'll  hear  elsewhere  the  noo.  So  gang  your  gate,  and  tell 
John  Crossthwaite,  privately,  auld  Sandy  Mackaye  wad  like 
to  see  hint  the  morn's  night." 

I  went  home  in  wonder  and  delight.  Books  !  boolcs !  books  I 
I  should  have  my  fill  of  them  at  last.  And  when  I  said  my 
prayers  at  night,  I  thanked  God  for  this  unexpected  boon  ; 
and  then  remembered  that  my  mother  had  forbidden  it. 
That  thought  checked  the  thanks,  but  not  the  pleasure.  Oh,' 
parents  I  are  there  not  real  sins  enough  in  the  world  already,' 
without  your  defiling  it,  over  and  abcve,  by  inventing  neW 
ones  ?  I 


CHAPTER  III. 

SANDY  MACKAYE. 

That  day  fortnight  came — and  the  old  Scotahnian's  words 
came  true.  Four  books  of  his  I  had  ah'eady,  and  I  came  in 
to  borrow  a  fifth  ;  whereon  he  began  with  a  solemn  chuckle : 

"  Eh,  laddie,  laddie,  I've  been  treating  ye  as  the  grocers  do 
their  new  prentices.  They  first  gie  the  boys  three  days'  free 
warren  among  the  figs  and  the  sugar-candy,  and  they  get 
scunnered  wi'  sweets  after  that.  Noo,  then,  my  lad  ye've 
just  been  reading  four  books  in  three  days — and  here's  a  fifth. 
Ye'll  no  open  this  again."      * 

"  Oh  I"  I  cried,  piteously  enough,  "just  let  me  finish  what 
I  am  reading.  I'm  in  the  middle  of  such  a  wonderful  account 
of  the  Hornitos  of  Jorullo." 

"  Hornets  or  Avasps,  a  swarm  o'  them  ye're  like  to  have  at 
this  rate  ;  and  a  very  bad  substitute  ye'll  find  them  for  the 
Attic  bee.  Now  tak  tent.  I'm  no  in  the  habit  of  speaking 
without  deliberation,  for  it  saves  a  man  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
in  changing  his  mind.  If  ye  canna  traduce  to  me  a  page  o' 
Virgil  by  this  day  three  months,  ye  read  no  more  o'  my  books. 
Desultory  reading  is  the  bane  o'  lads.  Ye  maun  begin  with 
self-restraint  and  method,  my  man,  gin  ye  intend  to  gie  your- 
sel'  a  liberal  education.  So  I'll  just  mak'  you  a  present  of  an 
auld  Latin  grammar,  and  ye  maun  begin  where  your  betters 
ha'  begun  before  you." 

"But  who  Avill  teach  me  Latin  V 

"  Hoot  I  man !  who'll  teach  a  man  any  thing  except  him- 
sel'  ?  It's  only  gentle  folks  and  puir  aristocrat  bodies  that  jjo 
to  be  spoilt  wi'  tutors  and  pedagogues,  cramming  and  loading 
them  wi'  knowledge,  as  ye'd  load  a  gun,  to  shoot  it  all  oul; 
again,  just  as  it  MX^nt  down,  in  a  college  examination,  and 
Ibrget  all  aboot  it  after." 

"  Ah  I"  I  sighed,  "  if  I  could  have  gone  to  college  I" 

"  What  for,  then  1  My  father  was  a  Hieland  iiirmer,  and 
yet  he  was  a  -u'ecl  learned  man  ;  and  'Sandy,  my  lad,'  he 
used  to  say,  '  a  man  kens  just  as  much  as  he's  taught  hiinseF, 
ard  ua  mair.     So  get  wisdom  ;  and  wi'  all  your  getting,  get 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         S.'i 

understanding.'  And  so  I  did.  And  mony's  the  Greek  ex- 
ercise I've  writteu  in  the  cowbyres.  And  mony's  the  page 
o'  Virgil,  too,  I've  turned  into  good  Dawric  Scotch  to  ane 
that's  dead  and  gane,  puir  hizzie,  sitting  under  the  same  plaid, 
with  the  sheep  feeding  round  us,  up  among  the  hills,  looking 
out  ower  the  broad  blue  sea,  and  the  wee  lixiven  wi'  the  fish- 
ing cobles — " 

There  was  a  long  solemn  pause.  I  can  not  tell  why,  but 
I  loved  the  man  I'rom  that  moment ;  and  I  thought,  too, 
that  he  began  to  love  me.  Those  lew  words  seemed  a  proof 
of"  confidence,  perhaps  all  the  deeper,  because  accidental  and 
unconscious. 

I  took  the  Virgil  which  he  lent  me,  with  Hamilton's  literal 
translation  between  the  lines,  and  an  old  tattered  Latin 
grammar ;  1  felt  myself  quite  a  learned  man — actually  the 
possessor  of  a  Latin  book  I  I  regarded  as  something  almost 
miraculous  the  opening  of  this  new  field  for  my  ambition. 
Not  that  I  was  consciously,  much  less  selfishly,  ambitious. 
I  had  no  idea  as  yet  to  be  any  thing  but  a  tailor  to  the  end  ; 
to  make  clothes — perhaps  in  a  less  infernal  atmosphere — but 
still  to  make  clothes  and  live  thereby.  I  did  not  suspect  that 
I  possessed  powers  above  the  mass.  My  intense  longing  after 
knowledge  had  been  to  me  like  a  girl's  first  love — a  thing  to 
be  concealed  from  every  eye — to  be  looked  at  askance,  even 
by  myself,  delicious  as  it  was,  with  holy  shame  and  trembling. 
And  thus  it  was  not  cowardice  merely,  but  natural  modesty, 
which  put  me  on  a  hundred  plans  of  concealing  my  studies 
from  my  mother,  and  even  from  my  sister. 

I  slept  in  a  little  lean-to  garret  at  the  back  of  the  house, 
some  ten  feet  long  by  six  wide.  I  could  just  stand  upright 
against  the  inner  wall,  while  the  roof  on  the  other  side  ran 
down  to  the  floor.  There  was  no  fireplace  in  it,  or  any 
means  of  ventilation.  No  wonder  I  coughed  all  night  ac- 
cordingly, and  Avoke  about  two  every  morning  with  choking 
throat  and  aching  head.  My  mother  often  said  that  the 
room  was  "  too  small  for  a  Christian  to  sleep  in,  but  where 
could  she  get  a  better  ?" 

Such  was  my  only  study.  I  could  not  use  it  as  such,  how- 
ever, at  night  without  discovery  ;  for  my  mother  carefully 
looked  in  every  evening  to  see  that  my  candle  was  out.  13 ut 
when  my  kind  cough  woke  me,  I  rose,  and  creeping  like  a 
mouse  about  the  room — for  my  mother  and  sister  slept  in  the 
next  chamber,  and  every  sound  was  audible  through  the 
narrow  partition — I  drew  my  darling  books  out  from  under  a 


3b         ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET 

board  of  the  floor,  one  end  of  which  I  had  gradually  loosens ' 
at  odd  minutes,  and  with  them  a  rushlight,  earned  by  running 
on  messages,  or  by  taking  bits  of  work  home,  and  finishing 
them  for  my  fellows. 

No  wonder  that  with  this  scanty  rest,  and  this  complicated 
exertion  of  hands,  eyes,  and  brain,  followed  by  the  long 
dreary  day's  work  of  the  shop,  my  health  began  to  fail ;  my 
eyes  grew  weaker  and  weaker ;  my  cough  became  more 
acute  ;  my  appetite  failed  me  daily.  My  mother  noticed  the 
change,  and  questioned  me  about  it,  affectionately  enough. 
But  I  durst  not,  alas  I  tell  the  truth.  It  was  not  one  oflense. 
but  the  arrears  of  months  of  disobedience  which  I  should  have 
had  to  confess ;  and  so  arose  infinite  false  excuses,  and  petty 
prevarications,  which  embittered  and  clogged  still  more  my 
already  overtasked  spirit.  About  my  own  ailments — formid- 
able as  I  believe  they  were — I  never  had  a  moment's  anxiety. 
The  expectation  of  early  death  was  as  unnatural  to  me  as  it 
is,  I  suspect,  to  almost  all.  I  die  ?  Had  I  not  hopes,  plans, 
desires,  infinite  ?  Could  I  die  while  they  were  unfulfilled  ? 
Even  now,  I  do  not  believe  I  shall  die  yet.  1  will  not  believe 
it — but  let  that  pass. 

Yes,  let  that  pass.  Perhaps  I  have  lived  long  enough — 
longer  than  many  a  gray-headed  man. 

There  is  a  race  of  mortals  who  become 
Old  in  their  youth,  and  die  ere  middle  age. 

And  might  not  those  days  of  mine  then  have  counted  as 
months  ?  those  days  when,  before  starting  forth  to  walk  two 
miles  to  the  shop  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  sat  some 
three  or  four  hours  shivering  on  my  bed,  putting  myself  into 
cramped  and  painful  postures,  not  daring  even  to  cough,  lest 
my  mother  should  fancy  me  unwell,  and  come  in  to  see  me, 
poor  dear  soul  I  my  eyes  aching  over  the  page,  ray  feet 
wrapped  up  in  the  bedclothes,  to  keep  them  from  the  miser- 
able pain  of  the  cold;  longing,  watching,  dawn  after  dawn, 
for  the  kind  summer  mornings,  when  I  should  need  no  candle- 
light. Look  at  the  picture  awhile,  ye  comfortable  folks,  who 
take  down  from  your  shelves  what  books  you  like  best  at  the 
moment,  and  then  lie  back,  amid  prints  and  statuettes,  to 
grow  wise  in  an  easy  chair,  with  a  blazing  fire  and  a  cam- 
phine  lamp.  The  lower  classes  uneducated  I  Perhaps  you 
would  be  so  too,  if  learning  cost  you  the  privation  which  it 
costs  some  of  them. 

But  this  concealment  could  not  last.      My  only  wonder  is, 


ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POEl         37 

that  1  continued  to  pet  whole  mouths  of  undiscovered  study. 
One  morning,  about  Ibur  o'clock,  as  might  have  been  expect- 
ed, my  mother  heard  me  stirring,  came  in,  and  found  me  sit- 
ting cross-legged  on  my  bed,  stitching  away,  indeed,  with  all 
my  might,  but  with  a  Virgil  open  before  me. 

She  glanced  at  the  book,  clutched  it  with  one  hand  and 
my  arm  with  the  other,  and  sternly  asked, 

"Where  did  you  get  this  heathen  stufl"?" 

A  lie  rose  to  my  lips ;  but  I  had  been  so  gradually  en- 
tangled in  the  loathed  meshes  of  a  system  of  concealment, 
and  consequent  prevarication,  that  1  felt  as  if  one  direct  false- 
hood would  ruin  lor  ever  my  fast-failing  self-respect,  and  I 
told  her  the  M'hole  truth.  She  took  the  book  and  left  the 
room.  It  was  Saturday  morning,  and  I  spent  two  miserable 
days,  for  she  never  spoke  a  word  to  me  till  the  two  ministers 
had  made  their  appearance,  and  drank  their  tea  on  Sunday 
evening  ;   then  at  last  she  opened — 

"  And  now,  Mr.  Wigginton,  what  account  have  you  of 
this  JMr.  jNIackaye,  who  has  seduced  my  unhappy  boy  from 
the  paths  of  obedience  ?" 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say,  madam,"  answered  the  dark  man,  with 
a  solemn  snuffle,  "  that  he  proves  to  be  a  most  objectionable 
and  altogether  unregenerate  character.  Pie  is,  as  I  am  in- 
formed, neither  more  nor  less  than  a  Chartist  and  an  open 
blasphemer." 

"  He  is  not  I"  I  interrupted,  angrily.  "  He  has  told  me 
more  about  God,  and  given  me  better  advice,  than  any  hu- 
man being,  except  my  mother." 

"  Ah  I  madam,  so  thinks  the  unconverted  heart,  ignorant 
that  the  god  of  the  Deist  is  not  the  God  of  the  Bible — a  con- 
suming fire  to  all  but  His  beloved  elect  ;  the  e:od  of  the  Deist, 
unhappy  youth,  is  a  mere  self-invented,  all-indulgent  phan- 
tom—  a  willo'-the-wisp,  deluding  the  unwary,  as  he  has 
deluded  you,  into  the  slough  of  carnal  reason  and  shamel'ul 
profligacy." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  call  me  a  profligate?"  I  retorted  fierc^'ly, 
for  my  blood  was  up,  and  I  lelt  I  was  fighting  for  all  whic.li 
I  prized  in  the  world  :  '•  if  you  do,  you  lie.  Ask  my  mother 
M'hen  I  ever  dieobeyed  her  before  ?  I  have  never  touched  a 
drop  of  any  thing  stronger  than  water ;  I  have  slaved  over- 
hours  to  pay  for  my  own  candle,  I  have — I  have  no  sins  to 
accuse  myself  of,  and  neither  you  nor  any  other  person  know 
of  any.  Do  you  call  me  a  profligate  because  I  \vish  to  edu- 
cate myself  and  rise  in  life  ?"  . 


33         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"All!"  groaned  my  poor  mother  to  herself,  "still  uncon- 
vinced of  sin  I" 

"  The  old  Adam,  my  dear  madam,  you  see — standing,  as 
he  always  does,  on  his  own  filthy  rags  of  works,  while  all  the 
imaginations  of  his  heart  are  only  evil  continually.  Listen  to 
me,  poor  sinner — " 

"  I  will  not  listen  to  you,"  I  cried,  the  accumulated  disgust 
of  years  bursting  out  once  and  for  all,  "  for  I  hate  and  despise 
;  you,  eating  my  poor  mother  here  out  of  house  and  home.  You 
;  are  one  of  those  who  creep  into  widows'  houses,  and  lor  pre- 
tense make  long  prayers.  You,  sir,  I  will  hear,"  I  went  on, 
turning  to  the  dear  old  man  who  had  sat  by  shaking  his  white 
locks  with  a  sad  and  puzzled  air,  "  for  I  love  you." 

"My  dear  sister  Locke,"  he  began,  "I  really  think  some- 
times— that  is,  ahem — with  your  leave,  brother — I  am  almost 
disposed — but  I  should  wish  to  -defer  to  your  superior  zeal — 
I  yet,  at  the  same  time,  perhaps,  the  desire  for  information, 
i  however  carnal  in  itself,  may  be  an  instrument  in  the  Lord's 
hands — you  know  Vv'hat  I  mean.  I  always  thought  him  a 
gracious  youth,  madam,  didn't  you  ?  And  perhaps — I  only 
observe  it  in  passing — the  Lord's  people  among  the  dissenting 
connections  are  apt  to  undervalue  human  learning  as  a  means 
— of  course,  I  mean  only  as  a  means.  It  is  not  generally 
known,  I  believe,  that  our  reverend  Puritan  patriarchs,  Howe, 
and  Baxter,  Owen  and  many  more,  were  not  altogether  un- 
acquainted with  heathen  authors  ;  nay,  that  they  may  have 
been  called  absolutely  learned  men.  And  some  of  our  leading 
ministers  are  inclined — no  doubt  they  will  be  led  rightly  in  so 
important  a  matter — to  follow  the  example  of  the  Indepen- 
dents in  educating  their  young  ministers,  and  turning  Satan's 
weapons  of  heathen  mythology  against  himself,  as  St.  Paul 
is  said  to  have  done.  My  dear  boy,  what  books  have  you  now 
got  by  you  of  Mr.  Mackaye's  ?" 

"  Milton's  Poems  and  a  Latin  Virgil." 
"Ah  I"  groaned  the  dark  man;   "will  poetry,  will  Latin 
save  an  immortal  soul  ?" 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  sir;  you  say  yourself  that  it  depends 
on  God's  absolute  coun.scl  whether  I  am  saved  or  not.  So,  if  I 
am  elect,  1  shall  be  saved  whatever  I  do  ;  and  if  I  am  not,  I 
shall  be  damned  whatever  I  do  ;  and  in  the  meantime  you 
had  better  mind  your  own  business,  and  let  me  do  the  best  I 
can  for  this  life,  as  the  next  is  all  settled  for  me." 

This  flippant,  but  after  all  not  unreasonable  speech,  set  rned 
to  silence  the  man  ;  and  I  took  the  opportunity  of  running  up- 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         3!» 

stairs  and  bringing  down  my  Milton.  The  old  man  was 
speaking  as  I  re-entered. 

"And  you  know,  my  dear  madam,  Mr.  Milton  was  a  true 
converted  man,  and  a  Puritan." 

"He  was  Oliver  Cromwell's  secretary,"  I  added. 

"Did  he  teach  you  to  disobey  your  mother?"  asked  my 
mother." 

I  did  not  answer ;  and  the  old  man,  after  turning  over  a 
few  leaves,  as  if  he  knew  the  book  well,  looked  up. 

"I  think,  madam,  you  might  let  the  youth  keep  these  boons, 
if  he  will  promise,  as  1  am  sure  he  will,  to  see  no  more  of 
Mr.  Mackayc." 

I  was  ready  to  burst  out  crying,  but  I  made  up  my  mind 
and  answered, 

"  I  must  see  hitn  once  again,  or  he  Mill  think  me  so  ungrate- 
fid.  He  is  the  best  friend  that  I  ever  had,  except  you,  mother. 
Besides,  I  do  not  know  if  he  will  lend  me  any,  alter  this." 

My  mother  looked  at  the  old  minister,  and  then  gave  a 
sullen  assent.  "Promise  me  only  to  see  him  once — but  I 
can  not  trust  you.  You  have  deceived  me  once,  Alton,  and 
you  may  again  I" 

"I  shall  not,  I  shall  not,"  I  answered  proudly.  "You  do 
not  know  me  I" — and  I  spoke  true. 

"You  do  not  know  yourself,  my  poor  dear  foolish  child  I" 
she  replied — and  that  was  true  too. 

"And  now,  dear  friends,"  said  the  dark  man,  "let  us  join 
in  offering  up  a  few  words  of  special  intercession." 

We  all  knelt  down,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  by  the  special 
intercession  was  meant  a  string  of  bitter  and  groundless  slan- 
ders against  poor  me,  twisted  into  the  form  of  a  prayer  for  my 
conversion,  "  if  it  were  God's  will."  To  which  I  responded 
with  a  closing  "Amen,"  ibr  which  I  was  sorry  afterward, 
when  I  recollected  that  it  was  said  in  merely  insolent  mockery. 
But  the  little  faith  I  had  was  breaking  up  fast — not  alto- 
gether, surely,  by  my  own  fault.* 

*  The  portraits  of  the  minister  and  the  missionary  arc  surely  excep- 
tions to  their  class,  rather  than  the  average.  The  Baptists  have  had 
their  Andrew  Fuller  and  Robert  Hall,  and  among  missionaries,  Dr. 
Carey,  and  noble  spirits  in  plenty.  But  such  men  as  those  who  excited  " 
Alton  Locke's  disgust  are  to  be  met  with  in  every  sect;  in  the  Church 
of  England,  and  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  And  it  is  a  real  and  fearful 
scandal  to  the  youncr,  to  see  such  mtn  listened  to  as  God's  messengers, 
in  spite  of  their  utter  want  of  any  manhood  or  virtue,  simply  because 
they  are  "orthodox,"  each  according  to  the  shibboleths  of  his  hearers, 
and  possess  that  vulpine  "discretion  of  dullness,"  whose  miraculous 


40        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILuU  AND  POET. 

At  all  events,  from  that  day  I  was  emancipated  from  modern 
Piirilanism.  The  ministers  both  avoided  all  serious  convers- 
ation with  me  ;  and  my  mother  did  the  same  ;  while  with 
a  strength  of  mind,  rare  among  women,  she  never  alluded  to 
the  scene  of  that  Sunday  evening.  It  was  a  rule  with  hei 
never  to  recur  to  what  was  once  done  and  settled.  What  was 
to  be.  might  be  prayed  over.  But  it  was  to  be  endured  in 
silence  ;  yet  wider  and  wider  ever  from  that  time  opened  the 
gulf  between  us. 

I  went  trembling  the  next  afternoon  to  Mackaye,  and  told 
my  story.  He  first  scolded  me  severely  for  disobeying  my 
mother.  "He  that  begins  o'  that  gate,  laddie,  ends  by  dis- 
obeying God  and  his  ain  conscience.  Gin  ye're  to  be  a  scholar, 
God  will  make  you  one — and  if  not,  ye'll  no  mak'  yoursel'  ane 
in  spite  o'  Him  and  His  commandments."  And  then  he 
filled  his  pipe  and  chuckled  av/?:y  in  silence  ;  at  last,  he  ex- 
ploded in  a  horse-laugh. 

"  So  ye  gied  tiie  ministers  a,  bit  o'  yer  mind  ?  '  The  deil's 
arnang  the  tailors'  in  gude  earnest,  as  the  sang  says.  There's 
Johnnie  Crossthwaite  kicked  the  Papist  priest  out  o'  his  house 
yestreen  ;  puir  ministers,  it's  ill  times  wi'  them  I  They  gang 
about  keckling  and  screighing  after  the  working-men,  like  a 
hen  that's  hatched  ducklings,  when  she  sees  them  tak'  the 
water.  Little  Dunkeld's  coming  to  London  sune,  I'm  think- 
ing. 

Hech !  sic  a  parish,  a  parish,  a  parish ; 

Hech  !  sic  a  parish  as  little  Dunlceld, 

They  hae  stickit  the  minister,  han<Ted  the  precentor. 

Dung  down  the  steeple,  and  drucken  the  bell." 

"  But  may  I  keep  the  books  a  little  while,  Mr.  Mackaye  I " 
"  Keep  them  till  ye  die,  gin  ye  will.  What  is  the  worth 
o'  them  to  me  1  What  is  the  worth  o'  any  thing  to  me,  puir 
auld  deevil,  that  ha'  no  half-a-dizen  years  to  live,  at  the 
furthest.  God  bless  ye,  my  bairn  ;  gang  hame,  and  mind 
your  mithei-,  or  it's  little  gude  books  '11  do  ye." 

mitrht  Dean  Swift  sets  forth  in  his  "  Essay  on  the  Fates  of  Clergymen." 
Such  men  do  exi'St,  and  prosper ;  and  as  long  as  they  are  allowed  to  do 
so,  Alton  Lockes  will  meet  them,  and  be  scandalized  by  them. — Ed- 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TAILORS  AND  SOLDIERS. 

I  WAS  now  tlirown  again  utterly  on  my  own  resources.  1 
read  and  re-read  Milton's  "  Poems"  and  Virgil's  "  ^Eneid"  foi 
six  more  months  at  every  spare  moment ;  thus  spendinsr  over 
them,  I  suppose,  all  in  all,  far  more  time  than  most  gentle- 
men have  done.  I  found,  too,  in  the  last  volume  of  Milton  a 
few  of  his  select  prose  works :  the  "  Areopagitica,"  the  "  Defense 
of  the  English  People,"  and  one  or  two  more,  in  which  I 
gradually  began  to  take  an  interest ;  and,  little  of  them  as  I 
could  comprehend,  I  was  awed  by  their  tremendous  depth 
and  power,  as  well  as  excited  by  the  utterly  new  trains  of 
thought  into  which  they  led  me.  Terrible  was  the  amount 
of  bodily  fatigue  which  I  had  to  undergo  in  reading  at  every 
spare  moment,  while  walking  to  and  fro  from  my  work,  while 
sitting  up.  often  from  midnight  till  dawn,  stitching  away  to 
pay  for  the  tallow-candle  which  I  burnt,  till  I  had  to  resort 
to  all  sorts  of  uncomfortable  contrivances  for  keeping  myself 
awake  even  at  the  expense  of  bodily  pain — Heaven  forbid  that 
I  should  weary  my  readers  by  describing  them  I  Youn  j  men 
of  the  upper  classes,  to  M'hom  study — pursue  it  as  intensely 
as  you  will — is  but  the  business  of  the  day,  and  every  spare 
moment  relaxation  ;  little  you  guess  the  irightful  drudgery 
undergone  by  a  man  of  the  people  Avho  has  vowed  to  educate 
himself — to  live  at  once  two  lives,  each  as  severe  as  the 
whole  of  yours — to  bring  to  the  self  imposed  toil  of  intellectual 
improvement,  a  body  and  brain  already  worn  out  by  a  day  of 
toilsome  manual  labor.  I  did  it.  God  forbid,  though,  that 
I  should  take  credit  to  myself  for  it.  Hundreds  more  have 
done  it,  with  still  fewer  advantages  than  mine.  Hundreds 
more,  an  ever  increasing  army  of  martyrs,  are  doing  it  at 
this  moment :  of  some  of  them  too,  perhaps  you  may  hear 
hereafter. 

I  had  read  through  Milton,  as  I  said,  again  and  again  ;  I 
had  got  out  of  him  all  that  my  youth  and  my  unregulated 
mind  enabled  me  to  get.  I  had  devoured,  too,  not  without 
profit,   a  large    old   edition  of  "  Fox's  Martyrs,"  which  the 


t-3         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

venerable  minister  lent  me,  and  now  I  was  hungering  again 
for  iVesh  food,  and  again  at  a  loss  where  to  find  it. 

I  was  hungering,  too,  fo-r  more  than  information — for  a 
friend.  Since  my  intercourse  with  Sandy  Mackaye  had  been 
stopped,  six  months  had  passed  without  my  once  opening  my 
lips  to  any  human  being  upon  the  subjects  with  which  my 
mind  was  haunted  day  and  night  I  wanted  to  know  more 
about  poetry,  history,  politics,  philos  ^phy — all  things  in  heaven 
and  earth.  But,  above  all,  I  wa^ited  a  faithful  and  sym- 
pathizing ear  into  which  to  pour  ah  my  doubts,  discontents, 
and  aspirations.  My  sister  Susan,  wao  was  one  year  younger 
than  myself,  was  growing  into  a  slei,  der,  pretty,  hectic  girl 
of  sixteen.  But  she  Avas  altogether  a  devout  Puritan.  She 
had  just  gone  through  the  proce.ss  of  ^■•onvictiou  of  sin  and 
conversion  ;  and  being  looked  upon  at  the  chapel  as  an 
especially  gracious  professor,  was  either  unable  or  unwilling 
to  think  or  speak  on  any  subject,  except  on  those  to  which  1 
felt  a  growing  distaste.  She  had  shrunk  from  me,  too,  very 
much,  since  my  ferocious  attack  that  Sunday  evening  on 
the  dark  minister,  who  was  her  special  favorite.  I  remarked 
it,  and  it  was  a  fresh  cause  of  unhappiness  and  perplexity. 

At  last  1  made  up  my  mind,  come  what  would,  to  force 
myself  upon  Crossthwaite.  He  was  the  only  man  whom  1 
knew  who  seemed  able  to  help  me ;  and  his  very  reserve  had 
invested  him  with  a  mystery,  which  served  to  heighten  my 
imagination  of  his  powers.  I  waylaid  him  one  day  coming 
out  of  the  work-room  to  go  home,  and  plunged  at  once  despe- 
rately into  the  matter. 

"  Mr.  Crossthwaite,  1  want  to  speak  to  you.  I  want  to 
ask  you  to  advise  me." 

"  I  have  known  that  a  long  time." 

"  Then  why  did  you  never  say  a  kind  word  to  me  ?" 

"  Because  I  was  waiting  to  see  whether  you  were  worth 
Eaying  a  kind  word  to.  It  was  but  the  other  day,  rent. ember, 
you  were  a  bit  of  a  boy.  Now,  I  think,  I  may  trust  yo.i  with 
a  thing  or  two.  Besides,  I  wanted  to  see  whether  you  trusted 
rne  enough  to  ask  me.  Now  you've  broke  the  ice  at  last,  in 
with  you,  head  and  ears,  and  see  what  you  can  fish  out." 

"I  am  very  unhappy — " 

"  That's  no  new  disorder  that  I  know  of" 

"No;  but  I  think  the  reason  I  am  unhappy  is  a  strange 
one  ;  at  least,  T  never  read  of  but  one  person  else  in  the  same 
way.     I  want  to  educate  myself,  and  I  can't." 

"  You  must  have  read   precious  little  then,  if  you  think 


ALTON  LOCKC,  TXi^^d  AND  POET.         13 

yourself  in  a  stran<re  way.  Bless  the  boy's  heart!  And 
what  the  d.ckcns  do  you  want  to  be  educating  yourself  i'ur, 
prayl" 

This  was  said  in  a  tone  of  good-humored  banter,  which 
gave  me  -'ourage.  He  oflered  to  walk  homeward  with  me  ; 
and,  as  I  shambled  along  by  his  side,  I  told  him  all  my  story 
and  all  v  y  griefs. 

I  ne-^er  shall  forget  that  walk.  Every  house,  tree,  turning, 
whiob  we  passed  that  day  on  our  way,  is  indissolubly,  con- 
nected in  my  mind  with  some  strange  new  thought  which 
arose  in  me  just  at  each  spot ;  and  recurs,  so  are  the  mind 
and  the  seuses  connected,  as  surely  as  I  repass  it. 

I  had  been  telling  him  about  Sandy  Mackaye.  He  con- 
fessed to  an  acquaintance  with  him  :  but  in  a  reserved  and 
mysterious  way,  which  only  heightened  my  curiosity. 

We  were  going  through  the  Ilor?e  Guards,  and  I  could  not 
help  lingering  to  look  with  wistful  admiration  on  the  huge 
mustached  war-machines  who  sauntered  about  the  court-yard. 
A  tall  and  handsome  officer,  blazing  in  scarlet  and  gold, 
cantered  in  on  a  superb  horse,  and,  dismounting,  threw  the 
reins  to  a  dragoon  as  grand  and  gaudy  as  himself.  Did  I 
envy  him  1  Well — I  was  but  seventeen.  And  there  is 
something  noble  to  the  mind,  as  well  as  to  the  eye,  in  the 
gn-at,  strong  man,  who  can  fight — a  completeness,  a  self- 
^e^^lraint,  a  terrible  sleeping  power  in  him.  As  Mr.  Carlyle 
says,  "  A  soldier,  after  all,  is  one  of  the  lew  remaining  reali- 
ties of  the  ajre.  All  other  professions  almost,  promise  one 
thing,  and  perform — alas!  what?  But  this  man  promises  to 
fight,  and  does  it;  and,  if  he  be  told,  Avill  veritably  take  out 
a  long  sword  and  kill  me." 

So  thought  rnv  companion,  though  the  mood  in  which  he 
viewed  the  fact  was  somewhat  diderent  from  my  own. 

"  Come  on,"  he  said,  peevishly  clutching  me  by  the  arm  ; 
"what  do  you  M'ant  dawdling?  Are  you  a  nursery-maid, 
that  you  must  stare  at  those  red-coated  butchers  ?  '  And  a 
deep  curse  followed. 

"  What  harm  have  they  done  you  ?" 
"  I  should  think  I  owed  them  turn  enough." 
-Whatr' 

"They  cut  my  father  down  at  Sheffield — perhaps  with  the 
very  swords  he  helped  1o  make — because  he  would  not  sit 
still  and  starve,  and  see  us  starving  round  him,  while  those   |' 
who  fattened  on  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  and  on  those  lungs  of 
his,  which  the  sword-grinding  dust  was  eating  out  day  by 


44  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

day,  were  wantoning  on  venison  and  champagne.  That's  the 
harm  they've  done  me,  my  chap  I" 

"  Poor  fellows  I — they  only  did  as  they  were  ordered,  I 
suppose." 

"  And  what  business  have  they  to  let  themselves  be  order- 
ed ?  What  right,  I  say — what  right  has  any  free,  reason- 
able soul  on  earth,  to  sell  himself  for  a  shilling  a  day  to  murder 
any  man,  right  or  M'rong — even  his  own  brother  or  his  own 
father — just  because  such  a  whiskered,  profligate  jackanapes 
as  that  officer,  without  learning,  without  any  god  except  his 
own  looking-glass  and  his  opera-dancer — a  fellow  who,  just 
because  he  is  born  a  gentleman,  is  set  to  command  gray-head- 
ed men  before  he  can  command  his  own  meanest  passions. 
Good  heavens  I  that  the  lives  of  free  men  should  be  intrusted 
to  such  a  stuffed  cockatoo  ;  and  that  free  men  should  be  such 
traitors  to  their  country,  traitors  to  their  own  flesh  and  blood, 
as  to  sell  themselves,  i'or  a  shilling  a  day  and  the  smirks  of 
the  nursery-maids,  to  do  that  fellow's  bidding  I" 

"  What  are  you  a-grumbling  about  here,  my  man? — gotten 
the  cholei'a  ?"  asked  one  of  the  dragoons,  a  huge,  stupid-look- 
ing lad. 

"About  you,  you  young  long  legged  cut-throat,"  answered 
Crossthwaite,  "and  all  your  crew  of  traitors." 

"  Help,  help,  coomrades  o'  mine  I"  quoth  the  dragoon,  burst- 
ing with  laughter;  "I'm  gane  be  moorthered  wi'  a  little  booy 
that's  gane  mad,  and  toorned  Chartist." 

I  dragged  Crossthvi^aitc  off';  for  what  was  jest  to  the  sol- 
diers I  saw,  by  his  face,  was  fierce  enough  earnest  to  him. 
We  walked  on  a  little  in  silence. 

"Now,"  I  said,  "that  was  a  good-natured  fellow  enough, 
though  he  was  a  soldier.  You  and  he  might  have  cracked 
many  a  joke  together,  if  you  did  but  understand  each  other ; 
and  he  was  a  countryman  of  yours,  too." 

"  I  may  crack  something  else  besides  jokes  with  him  some 
day,"  answered  he,  moodily. 

"  'Pon  my  M-ord,  you  must  take  care  how  you  do  it.  He 
is  as  big  as  four  of  us." 

"That  vile  aristocrat,  the  old  Italian  poet — what's  his 
name  ? — Ariosto — ay  I — he  knew  which  quarter  the  wind 
was  making  for,  when  he  said  that  fire-arms  would  be  the 
end  of  all  your  old  knights  and  gentlemen  in  armor,  that 
hewed  down  unarmed  innocents  as  if  they  had  been  sheep. 
Gunpowder  is  your  true  leveler — dash  physical  strength!  A 
boy's  a  man  with  a  musket  in  his  hand,  my  chap  I" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        45 

"God  forbid,"  I  said,  "  that  I  should  ever  be  made  a  man 
ot'  in  that  way,  or  you  either.  I  do  not  think  we  arc  quite 
big  enough  to  make  fighters ;  and  if  we  were,  what  have  we 
got  to  fight  about  ?" 

"Big  enough  to  make  fighters?"  said  he,  half  to  himself; 
"  or  strong  enough  perhaps  ? — or  clever  enough  ? — and  yet 
Alexander  was  a  little  man,  and  the  Petit  Caporal,  and 
Nelson,  and  Caesar,  too ;  and  so  was  Saul  of  Tarsus,  and 
weakly  he  was  into  the  bargain.  ^Esop  was  a  dwarf,  and  so 
was  Attila  ;  Shakespeare  was  lame  ;  Alfred  a  rickety  weak- 
ling; Byron,  clublboted  ; — so  much  for  body  versus  spirit — 
brute  force  versus  genius — genius." 

I  looked  at  him  ;  his  eyes  glared  like  two  balls  of  fire. 
Suddenly  lie  turned  to  me. 

"Locke,  my  boy,  I've  made  an  ass  of  myself,  and  got  into 
*  rage,  and  broken  a  good  old  resolution  of  mine,  and  a  prom- 
ise that  I  made  to  my  dear  little  woman — bless  her! — aud 
said  things  to  you  that  you  ought  to  know  nothing  of  for  this 
long  time  ;  but  those  red-coats  always  put  me  beside  myself. 
God  forgive  me  I"  And  he  held  out  his  hand  to  me  cor- 
dially. 

"  I  can  quite  understand  your  feeling  deeply  on  one  point," 
I  said,  as  I  took  it,  "  after  the  sad  story  you  told  me  ;  but 
why  so  bitter  on  all  1  What  is  there  so  very  wrong  about 
things,  that  we  must  begin  fighting  about  it  ?" 

"  Bless  your  heart,  poor  innocent  I  What  is  wrong — what 
is  not  M'rong  ?  Wasn't  there  enough  in  that  talk  with 
Mackaye,  that  you  told  me  o!"  just  now,  to  show  any  body 
that,  who  can  tell  a  hawk  from  a  handsaw  ?" 

"  Was  it  wrong  in  him  to  give  himself  such  trouble  about 
Ihe  education  of  a  poor  young  fellow,  wh6  has  no  tie  on  him. 
who  can  never  repay  him  ?" 

'•  No  ;  that's  just  like  him.  lie  feels  for  the  people,  for  he 
has  been  one  of  ns.  He  worked  in  a  printing-otiice  himself 
many  a  year,  and  he  knows  the  heart  of  the  working  man. 
But  he  didn't  tell  you  the  whole  truth  about  education.  He 
daren't  tell  you.  No  one  who  has  money  dare  speak  out  his 
heart ;  not  that  he  has  much,  certainly  ;  but,  the  cunning  old 
Scot  that  he  is,  he  lives  by  the  present  system  of  things,  and 
he  won't  speak  ill  of  the  bridge  which  carries  him  over — till 
the  time  comes." 

I  could  not  understand  whither  all  this  tended,  and  walked 
on,  silent  and  somewhat  angry,  at  hearing  the  least  slight 
cast  on  Mackaye. 


46         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"Don't,  you  see,  stupid?"  he  broke  out  at  last.  "What 
Aid  he  say  to  you  about  gentlemen  being  crammed  by  tutors 
and  professors  1  Have  not  you  as  good  a  right  to  them  as 
any  gentleman  ?" 

"  Bat  he  told  me  they  were  no  use — that  every  man  must 
educate  himself." 

"  Oh  !  all  very  fine  to  tell  you  the  grapes  are  sour,  when 
you  can't  reach  them.  Bah,  lad  !  Can't  you  see  what  comes 
of  education  ?  that  any  dolt,  provided  he  be  a  gentleman,  can 
be  doctored  up  at  school  and  college,  enoufrh  to  make  him 
play  his  part  decently — his  mighty  part  of  ruluig  us,  and  riding 
over  our  heads,  and  picking  our  pockets,  as  parson,  doctor, 
lawyer,  member  of  parliament — while  we — you  now,  for  in- 
stance— cleverer  than  ninety-nine  gentlemen  out  of  a  hundred, 
if  you  had  one-tenth  the  trouble  taken  with  you  that  is  taken 
with  every  pig-headed  son  of  an  aristocrat — " 

"Am  1  clever?"  asked  I,  in  honest  surprise. 

"  What  I  haven't  you  found  that  out  yet?  Don't  try  to 
put  that  on  me.  Don't  a  girl  know  Avhen  she's  pretty,  with- 
out asking  her  neighbors  1" 

"  Really,  I  never  thought  about  it." 

"More  simpleton  you.  Old  Mackaye  has,  at  all  events; 
though,  canny  Scotchman  that  he  is,  he'll  never  say  a  word  to 
you  about  it,  yet  he  makes  no  secret  of  it  to  other  people.  I 
heard  him  the  other  day  telling  some  of  our  friends  that  you 
were  a  thorough  young  genius." 

I  blushed  scarlet,  between  pleasure  and  a  new  feeling; 
was  it  ambition  1 

"  Why,  haven't  you  a  right  to  aspire  to  a  college  education 
as  any  do-nothing  canon  there  at  the  abbey,  lad  ?" 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  have  a  right  to  any  thing." 

"  What,  not  become  what  Nature  intended  yon  to  become  ' 
What  has  she  given  you  brains  ibr,  but  to  be  educated  and 
used  ?  Oh  !  I  heard  a  fine  lecture  iif)on  that  at  our  club  the 
other  night.  There  was  a  man  there — a  gentleman,  too,  but 
a  thorough-going  people's  man,  I  can  tell  you,  Mr.  O'Flynn. 
What  an  orator  that  man  is,  to  be  sure !  The  Irish  iEschines, 
I  hear  they  call  him  in  Conciliation  Hall.  Isn't  he  the  man 
to  pitch  into  the  Mammonites  ?  '  Gentlemen  and  ladies,' 
riays  he,  '  how  long  will  a  diabolic  society' — no,  an  efiete  so- 
ciety it  was — '  how  long  will  an  efiete,  emasculate,  and  eflem 
inate  society,  in  the  diabolic  selfishness  of  its  eclecticism,  re 
fuse  to  acknowledge  what  my  immortal  countryman,  Burke, 
calls  the  "  Dei  voluntatem  in  rebus  revelatam" — the  reveU 


ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET.  47 

iion  of  Nature's  will  in  the  phenomena  of  matter  ?  the  cere- 
bratiou  of  each  in  the  prophetic  sacrament  of  the  yet  unde- 
veloped possibilities  of  his  mentation  1  The  form  of  the  brain 
alone,  and  not  the  possession  of  the  vile  gauds  of  wealth  and 
rank,  constitute  man's  only  right  to  education — to  the  glories 
of  art  and  science.  Those  beaming  eyes  and  roseate  lips  be- 
neath me  proclaim  a  bevy  of  undeveloped  Aspasias,  of  embryo 
Cleopatras.  destined  by  Nature,  and  only  restrained  by  man's 
injustice,  from  ruling  the  world  by  their  beauty's  eloquence. 
Those  massive  and  beetling  brows,  gleaming  with  the  lambent 
flames  of  patriotic  ardor — what  is  needed  to  unfold  them  into 
a  race  of  Shakspeares  and  of  Gracchi,  ready  to  proclaim  with 
Bword  and  lyre  the  divine  harmonies  of  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity,  before  a  quailing  universe  ?'  " 

"  It  sounds  very  grand,"  replied  I,  meekly  ;  "  and  I  should 
like  very  much  certainly  to  have  a  good  education.  But  I 
can't  see  whose  injustice  keeps  me  out  of  one,  if  I  can't  afford 
to  pay  for  it." 

"  Whose  1  Why,  the  parsons'  to  be  sure.  They've  got  the 
monopoly  of  education  in  England,  and  they  get  their  bread 
by  it  at  their  public  schools  and  universities ;  and  of  course 
it's  their  interest  to  keep  up  the  price  of  their  commodity,  and 
let  no  man  have  a  taste  of  it  who  can't  pay  down  handsomely. 
And  so  those  aristocrats  of  college  dons  go  on  rolling  in  riches, 
and  fellowships,  and  scholarships,  that  were  bequeathed  by 
the  people's  friends  in  old  times,  just  to  educate  poor  scholars 
like  you  and  me,  and  give  us  our  rights  as  free  men." 

"  But  I  thought  the  clergy  were  doing  so  much  to  educate 
the  poor.  At  least,  I  hear  all  the  dissenting  ministers  grum- 
bling at  their  continual  interference." 

"  Ay,  educating  them  to  make  them  slaves  and  bigots. 
They  don't  teach  them  what  they  teach  their  own  sons. 
Look  at  the  miserable  smattering  of  general  information — just 
enough  to  serve  as  sauce  for  their  great  first  and  last  lesson 
of  'Obey  the  powers  that  be' — whatever  they  be;  leave  us 
alone  in  our  comforts,  and  starve  patiently  ;  do,  like  good 
boys,  for  it's  God's  will.  And  then,  if  a  boy  does  show  talent 
in  school,  do  they  help  him  up  in  life  ]  Not  they  ;  when  he 
has  just  learnt  enough  to  whet  his  appetite  for  more,  they 
turn  him  adrift  again,  to  sink  and  drudge — to  do  his  duty,  as 
they  call  it,  in  that  state  of  life  to  which  society  and  the  devil 
have  called  hitn." 

"  But  there  are  innumerable  stories  of  great  Englishmen 
who  have  risen  from  the  lowest  ranks." 


48        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET, 

"  "  Ay  ;  but  where  are  the  stones  of  those  who  have  not  risen 
— of  all  the  noble  geniuses  who  have  ended  in  desperation, 
drunkenness,  starvation,  suicide,  because  no  one  would  take 
the  trouble  of  lifting  them  up,  and  enabling  them  to  walk  in 
the  path  which  nature  had  marked  out  for  them?  Dead 
men  tell  no  tales ;  and  this  old  whited  sepulchre,  society,  ain't 
going  to  turn  informer  against  itself" 

"I  trnst  and  hope,"  I  said,  sadly,  "that  if  God  intends  me 
to  rise,  He  will  open  the  way  for  me;  perhaps  the  very  strug- 
gles and  sorrows  of  a  poor  genius  may  teach  him  more  than 
ever  wealthxmd  prosperity  could." 

"  True,  Alton  my  boy !  and  that's  my  only  comfort.  It 
dc-es  makg  men  of  us,  this  bitter  battle  of  life.  We  working 
men,  when  we  do  come  out  of  the  furnace,  come  out,  not  tin- 
■sel  and  papier  mache,  like  those  fops  of  red-tape  statesmen, 
but  steel  and  granite,  Alton,  my  boy — that  has  been  seven 
times  tried  in  the  fire :  and  woe  to  the  papier  raache  gentle- 
man that  runs  against  us  I  But,"  he  went  on,  sadly,  "for  one 
who  comes  safe  through  the  furnace,  there  are  a  hundred  M'ho 
crack  iu  the  burning.  You  are  a  young  bear,  my  lad,  with 
all  your  sorrows  before  you ;  and  you'll  find  that  a  working 
man's  training  is  like  the  Red  Indian  children's.  The  few 
who  are  strong  enough  to  stand  it  grow  up  warriors;  but  all 
those  who  are  not  fire-aud- water- proof  by  nature — just  die, 
Alton,  my  lad,  and  the  tribe  thinks  itself  well  rid  of  them." 

So  that  conversation  ended.  But  it  had  implanted  in  my 
bosom  a  new  seed  of  mingled  good  and  evil,  which  was  des- 
tined to  bear  fruit,  precious  perhaps  as  well  as  bitter.  God 
knows  it  has  hung  on  the  tree  long  enough.  Sour  and  harsh 
from  the  first,  it  has  been  many  a  year  in  ripening.  But  the 
sweetness  of  the  apple,  the  potency  of  the  grape,  as  the  chem- 
ists tell  us,  are  born  out  of  acidity — a  developed  .sourness. 
Will  it  be  so  with  my  thoughts  ?  Dare  I  assert,  as  I  sit 
writing  here,  with  the  wild  waters  slipping  past  the  cabin 
windows,  backward  and  backward  ever,  every  plunge  of  the 
vessel  one  forward  leap  from  the  old  world — worn-out  world, 
T  had  almost  called  it,  of  sham  civilization  and  real  penury — ■ 
dare  I  hope  ever  to  return  and  triumph  ?  Shall  I,  after  all, 
lay  my  bones  among  my  own  people,  and  hear  the  voices  of 
iVeemen  whisper  in  my  dying  ears? 

Silence,  dreaming  heart  I  Sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof — and  the  good  thereof  also.  Would  that  1  had  known 
tliat  before  I  Above  all,  that  I  had  known  it  on  that  night, 
when  first  the  burning  thougiit  arose  in  my  heart,  that  I  was 


Al/ruN  LOCKE,  TAII,OR  AND  I'OET.  49 

Unjustly  used;  that  society  hau  not  iriveu  me  my  rights.  It 
came  to  me  as  a  revelation,  celestial-infernal,  full  of  glorious 
hopes  of  the  possible  future  in  store  for  me  through  the  per- 
fect development  of  all  my  faculties;  and  full,  too,  of  fierce 
present  rage,  wounded  vanity,  bitter  grudgings  against  those 
more  favored  than  myself,  which  grew  in  time  almost  to 
cursing  against  the  God  who  had  made  me  a  poor  untutored 
M'orking-man,  and  seemed  to  have  given  me  genius  only  to 
keep  me  in  a  Tantalus'-hell  of  unsatisfied  thirst. 

Ay,  respectable  gentlemen  and  ladies,  I  will  confess  all  to 
you — you  shall  have,  if  you  enjoy  it,  a  fresh  opportunity  for 
indulging  that  supreme  pleasure  which  the  press  daily  affords 
you  of  insulting  the  classes  whose  powers  most  of  you  know  as 
little  as  you  do  their  suflerings.  Yes  ;  the  Chartist  poet  is  vain, 
conceited,  ambitious,  uneducated,  shallow,  inexperienced,  en- 
vious, ferocious,  scurrilous,  seditious,  traitorous.  Is  your  char- 
itable vocabulary  exhausted  ?  Then  ask  yourselves,  how 
often  have  you  yourself  honestly  resisted  and  conquered  the 
temptation  to  any  one  of  these  sins,  when  it  has  come  across 
you,  just  once  in  a  way,  and  not  as  they  came  to  me,  as  they 
come  to  thousands  of  the  working-men,  daily  and  hourly,  "till 
their  t^ments  do,  by  length  of  time,  become  their  elements?" 
What,  are  we  covetous,  too  ?  Yes  !  And  if  those  who  have, 
like  you,  still  covet  more,  what  wonder  if  those  who  have 
nothing,  covet  something  ]  Profligate  too  ]  Well,  though 
that  imputation  as  a  generality  is  utterly  calumnious,  though 
your  amount  of  respectable  animal  enjoyment  per  annum  is  a 
hundred  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  most  self-indulgent  art- 
isan, yet  if  you  had  ever  felt  what  it  is  to  want,  not  only 
every  luxury  of  the  senses,  but  even  bread  to  eat,  you  would 
think  more  mercifully  of  the  man  who  makes  up  by  rare  ex- 
cesses, and  those  only  of  the  limited  kinds  possible  to  him,  for 
long  intervals  of  dull  privation,  and  says  in  his  madness,  "Let 
us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die  I"  AVe  have  our  sins, 
and  you  have  yours.  Ours  may  be  the  more  gross  and  bar- 
baric, but  yours  are  none  the  less  damnable ;  perhaps  all  the 
more  so,  for  being  the  sleek,  subtle,  respectable,  religious  sins 
they  are.  You  are  frantic  enough  if  our  part  of  the  press 
calls  you  hard  names,  but  you  can  not  see  that  your  part  of 
the  press  repays  it  back  to  us  with  interest.  IVe  see  those 
insults,  and  feel  them  bitterly  enough  ;  and  do  not  forget  them, 
alas !  soon  enough,  while  they  pass  unheeded  by  your  delicate 
eyes  as  trivial  truisms.  Horrible,  unprinoiplcd,  villainous,  se- 
ditious, frantic,   blasphemous,   are  epithets    of  course,  when 

C 


50  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET 

applied  to — to  how  large  a  portion  of  the  English  people,  yott 
will  some  day  discover  to  your  astonishment.  When  will 
that  day  come  and  how  ?  In  thunder,  and  storm,  and  gar- 
ments rolled  in  blood  ?  Or  like  the  dew  on  the  mown  grass. 
and  the  clear  shining  of  the  sunlight  after  April  rain  ? 

Yes,  it  was  true.  Society  had  not  given  me  my  rights. 
And  woe  unto  the  man  on  whom  that  idea,  true  or  false,  rises 
lurid,  filling  all  his  thoughts  with  stifling  glare,  as  of  the  pit 
itself  Be  it  true,  be  it  false,  it  is  equally  a  woe  to  believe  it ; 
to  have  to  live  on  a  negation ;  to  have  to  worship  for  our  only 
idea,  as  hundreds  of  thousands  of  us  have  this  day,  the  hatred 
of  the  things  which  are.  Ay,  though  one  of  us,  here  and  there, 
may  die  in  faith,  in  sight  of  the  promised  land,  yet  is  it  not 
hard,  when  looking  from  the  top  of  Pisgah  into  "  the  good 
time  coming,"  to  watch  the  years  slipping  away  one  by  one, 
and  death  crawling  nearer  and  nearer,  and  the  people 
wearying  themselves  in  the  fire  for  very  vanity,  and  Jor- 
dan not  yet  passed,  the  promised  land  not  yet  entered  ? 
while  our  little  children  die  around  us,  like  lambs  beneath 
the  knife,  of  cholera,  and  typhus,  and  consumption,  and  all 
the  diseases  which  the  good  time  can  and  will  prevent ; 
which,  as  science  has  proved,  and  you  the  rich  confess,  might 
be  prevented  at  once,  if  you  dared  to  bring  in  one  bold  and 
comprehensive  measure,  and  not  sacrifice  yearly  the  lives 
of  thousands  to  the  idol  of  vested  interests  and  a  majority  in 
the  House.  Is  it  not  hard  to  men  who  smart  beneath  such 
things  to  help  crying  aloud — "Thou  cursed  Moloch-Mam- 
mon, take  my  life  if  thou  wilt;  let  me  die  in  the  wilderness, 
for  I  have  deserved  it ;  but  these  little  ones  in  mines  and 
factories,  in  typhus-cellars,  and  Tooting  pandemoniums,  what 
have  they  done  ?  If  not  in  their  fathers'  cause,  yet  still  in 
theirs,  were  it  so  great  a  sin  to  die  upon  a  barricade  ?" 

Or,  after  all,  my  working  brothers,  is  it  true  of  our  promised 
land,  even  as  of  that  Jewish  one  of  old,  that  the  j^^iests  feet 
must  first  cross  the  mystic  stream  into  the  good  land  and 
large  which  God  has  prepared  for  us  ? 

Is  it  so  indeed  1  Then,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
ye  priests  of  His,  why  will  ye  not  awake,  and  arise  and  go 
over  Jordan,  that  the  people  of  the  Lord  may  follow  you  ? 


0 

CHAPTEE,  V. 

THE  SKEPTIC'S  IMOTHER. 

My  readers  will  perceive,  from  what  I  have  detailed,  tliat 
[  was  not  likely  to  get  any  very  positiA'e  ground  of  comfort 
from  Crossthwaite  ;  and  fi"om  wrihin  myself  there  "was  daily 
less  and  le?s  hope  of  any.  Daily  the  struggle  became  more 
intolerable  between  my  duty  to  my  mother,  and  my  duty 
to  myself — that  inward  thirst  for  mental  self-improvemeni, 
which,  without  any  clear  consciousness  of  its  sanctity  or 
inspiration,  I  felt,  and  could  not  help  feeling,  that  I  must 
follow.  No  doubt  it  was  very  self-willed  and  ambitious  of 
me  to  do  that  which  rich  men's  sons  are  flogged  for  not 
doing,  and  rewarded  with  all  manner  of  prizes,  scholarships, 
fellowships,  for  doing.  But  the  nineteenth  year  is  a  time 
of  life  at  which  self-will  is  apt  to  exhibit  itself  in  other  people 
besides  tailors  ;  and  those  religious  persons  who  think  it  no 
sin  to  drive  their  sons  on  through  classics  and  mathematics, 
in  hopes  of  gaining  them  a  station  in  life,  ought  not  to  be  very 
hard  upon  me  for  driving  myself  on  through  the  same  path 
without  any  such  selfish  hope  of  gain — though  perhaps  the 
very  fact  of  my  having  no  wish  or  expectation  of  such  ad- 
vantage will  constitute  in  their  eyes  my  sin  and  folly,  and 
prove  that  I  was  following  the  dictates  merely  of  a  carnal 
lust,  and  not  of  a  proper  worldly  prudence.  I  really  do  not 
wish  to  be  flippant  or  sneering.  I  have  seen  the  evil  of  it  as 
much  as  any  man,  in  myself  and  in  my  o-wn  class.  But  there 
are  excuses  for  such  a  fault  in  the  working-man.  It  does 
sour  and  madden  him  to  be  called  presumptuous  and  ambi- 
tious for  the  very  same  aspirations  which  are  lauded  up  to 
the  skies  in  the  sons  of  the  rich — unless,  indeed,  he  will  do 
one  little  thing,  and  so  make  his  peace  with  society.  If  he 
will  desert  his  own  class  ;  if  he  will  try  to  become  a  sham 
gentleman,  a  parasite,  and,  if  he  can,  a  Mammonite,  the 
world  will  compliment  him  on  his  noble  desire  to  "rise  in 
life."  He  will  have  Avon  his  spurs,  and  be  admitted  into 
that  exclusive  pale  of  knighthood,  beyond  which  it  is  a  sin  to 
carry  aims  even  in  self  defense.      But  if  the  working  genius 


5-:         ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET 

dares  to  be  true  to  his  own  class — to  stay  among  them — to 
regenerate  them — to  defend  them — to  devote  his  talents  to 
those  among  whom  God  placed  him  and  brought  him  up — 
then  he  is  the  demagogue,  the  incendiary,  the  fanatic,  the 
dreamer.  So  you  would  have  the  monopoly  of  talent,  too, 
exclusive  worldlings  ?  And  yet  you  pretend  to  believe  in  the 
miracle  of  Pentecost,  and  the  religion  that  was  taught  by  the 
Carpenter's  Son,  and  preached  across  the  world  by  fishermen  I 

I  was  several  times  minded  to  argue  the  question  out  with 
ray  mother,  and  assert  ibr  myself  the  same  independence  of 
.soul  which  I  was  now  earning  for  my  body  by  my  wages. 
Once  I  had  resolved  to  speak  to  her  that  very  evening  ;  but 
strangely  enough,  happening  to  open  the  Bible,  which,  alas  I 
I  did  seldom  at  that  time,  my  eye  fell  upon  the  chapter  where 
Jesus,  after  having  justified  to  His  parents  His  absence  in  the 
Temple,  while  hearing  the  doctors  and  asking  them  questions, 
yet  M'ent  down  with  them  to  Nazareth,  after  all,  and  was 
subject  unto  them.  The  story  struck  me  vividly  as  a  symbol 
of  my  own  duties.  But  on  reading  further,  I  found  more 
than  one  passage  which  seemed  to  me  to  convey  a  directly 
opposite  lesson,  where  His  mother  and  His  brethren,  fancying 
Him  mad,  attempted  to  interfere  Avith  His  labors,  and  assert- 
ing their  family  rights  as  reasons  for  retaining  Him,  met  with 
a  peremptory  rebufl'.  I  puzzled  my  head  for  some  time  to 
find  out  which  of  the  two  cases  was  the  more  applicable  to 
my  state  of  self-development.  The  notion  of  asking  for  teach- 
ing from  on  high  on  such  a  point  had  never  crossed  me.  In- 
deed, if  it  had,  I  did  not  believe  sufficiently  either  in  the  story 
©r  in  the  doctrines  connected  with  it,  to  have  tried  such  a 
resource.  And  so,  as  may  be  supposed,  my  growing  self-con- 
ceit decided  for  me  that  the  latter  course  was  a  fitting  one. 

And  yet  I  had  not  energy  to  carry  it  out.  I  was  getting  so 
worn  out  in  body  and  mind  from  continual  study  and  labor, 
stinted  food  and  want  of  sleep,  that  I  could  not  face  the 
thought  of  an  explosion,  such  as  I  knew  must  ensue,  and  I 
lingered  on  in  the  same  unhappy  state,  becoming  more  and 
more  morose  in  manner  to  my  mother,  while  I  was  as  assidu- 
ous as  ever  in  all  filial  duties.  But  I  had  no  pleasure  in  home. 
She  seldom  spoke  to  me.  Indeed,  there  was  no  common  topic 
about  which  we  could  speak.  ^Besides,  ever  since  that  fatal 
Sunday  evening,  I  saw  that  she  suspected  me  and  vi'atched 
me.  I  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  she  set  spies  upon  my 
conduct.  Poor  dear  mother  I  God  forbid  that  I  should  accuso 
thee  for  a  single  care  of  thine,  for  a  single  suspicion  even. 


'7>t<?-^ 


i 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND   I'OLT.  53 


prompted  as  they  all  were  by  a  mother's  anxious  love.  I 
would  never  have  committed  these  things  to  paper,  hadst  thou 
not  been  far  beyond  the  reach  or  hearing  of  them  ;  and  only 
now,  in  hopes  that  they  may  serve  as  a  warning,  in  some 
degree  to  mothers,  but  ten  times  more  to  children.  For  1 
sinned  against  thee,  deeply  and  shamefully,  in  thought  and 
deed,  while  ihou  didst  never  sin  against  me  ;  though  all  thy 
caution  did  but  hasten  the  fatal  explosion  which  came,  and 
perhaps  must  have  come,  under  some  form  or  other,  in 
any  case. 

I  had  been  detained  one  night  in  the  shop  till  late  ;  and  on 
my  return  my  mother  demanded,  in  a  severe  tone,  the  reason 
of  my  stay  ;  and  on  my  telling  her,  answered  as  severely  that 
she  did  not  believe  me  ;  that  she  had  too  much  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  I  had  been  with  bad  companions. 

"  Who  dared  to  put  such  a  thought  into  your  head  ?" 

She  "would  not  give  up  her  authorities,  but  she  had  too 
much  reason  to  believe  them." 

Again  I  demanded  the  name  of  my  slanderer,  and  was  re- 
fused it.  And  then  I  burst  out,  for  the  first  time  \\\  my  life, 
into  a  real  fit  of  rage  with  her.  I  can  not  tell  how  I  dared  to 
say  what  I  did,  but  I  was  weak,  nervous,  irritable — my  brain 
excited  beyond  all  natural  tension.  Above  all,  I  felt  that  she 
was  unjust  to  me  ;  and  my  good  conscience,  as  well  as  my 
pride,  rebelled. 

"  You  have  never  trusted  me,"  I  cried  ;  "  you  have  watched 
me — " 

"Did  you  not  deceive  me  once  already  V 

"And  if  I  did,"  I  answered,  more  and  more  excited,  "have 
I  not  slaved  for  you,  stinted  myself  of  clothes  to  pay  your  rent  ? 
Have  I  not  rim  to  and  fro  for  you  like  a  slave,  while  I  knew 
all  the  time  you  did  not  respect  me  or  trust  me  ?  If  you  had 
only  treated  me  as  a  child  and  an  idiot,  I  could  have  borne  it. 
*  But  you  have  been  thinking  of  me  all  the  while  as  an  incar- 
nate fiend — dead  in  trespasses  and  sins — a  child  of  wrath  and 
the  devil.  What  right  have  you  to  be  astonished  if  I  should 
do  my  father's  works  ?" 

"You  may  be  ignorant  of  vital  religion,"  she  answered  ; 
"  and  you  may  insult  me.  But  if  you  make  a  mock  of  God's 
word,  you  leave  my  house.  If  you  can  laugh  at  religion,  you 
can  deceive  me." 

The  pent-up  skepticism  of  years  burst  forth. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "don't  talk  to  me  about  religion,  and 
election,  and  conversion,  and  all  that — I  don't  believe  one 


At 


t- 


/ 


54         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOK  AMD  TOET 

word  of  it.  Nobody  does,  except  good  kind  people — (like  you, 
alas  I  I  was  going  to  say,  but  the  devil  stopped  the  words  at 
my  lips) — who  must  needs  have  some  reason  to  account  for 
their  goodness.  That  Bowyer — he's  a  soft  heart  by  nature, 
and  as  he  is,  so  he  does — religion  has  had  nothing  to  do  with 
that,  any  more  than  it  has  with  that  black-faced,  canting 
scoundrel  who  has  been  telling  you  lies  about  me.  Much  his 
lieart  is  changed.  He  carries  sneak  and  slanderer  written  in 
his  face — and  sneak  and  slanderer  he  will  be,  elect  or  none. 
Religion  ?  Nobody  believes  in  it.  The  rich  don't ;  or  they 
wouldn't  fill  their  churches  up  with  pews  and  shut  the  poor 
out,  all  the  time  they  are  calling  them  bi  others.  They  be- 
lieve the  gospel?  Then  why  do  they  leave  the  men  who 
make  their  clothes  to  starve  in  such  hells  on  earth  as  our 
work-room  1  No  more  do  the  tradespeople  believe  in  it ;  or 
they  wouldn't  go  home  from  sermon  to  sand  the  sugar,  n'y\ 
put  sloe-leaves  in  the  tea,  and  send  out  lying  puffs  of  their 
vamped-up  goods,  and  grind  the  last  farthing  out  of  the  poor 
creatures  who  rent  their  wretched  stinking  houses.  And  as 
ibr  the  workmen — they  laugh  at  it  all,  I  can  tell  you.  Much 
good  religion  is  doing  lor  them  I  You  may  see  it's  fit  only  for 
women  and  children — for  go  wdiere  you  Avill,  church  or  chapel, 
you  see  hardly  any  thing  but  bonnets  and  babies  I  I  don't 
believe  a  word  of  it — once  and  for  all.  I'm  old  enough  to 
think  for  myself,  and  a  free-thinker  I  will  be,  and  believe 
nothing  but  what  I  know  and  understand." 

1  had  hardly  spoken  the  words,  when  I  Mould  have  given 
worlds  to  recall  them — but  it  was  to  be — and  it  was. 

Sternly  she  looked  at  me  full  in  the  face,  till  my  eyes  drop- 
ped before  her  gaze.     Then  she  spoke  steadily  and  slowly  : 

"  Leave  this  house  this  moment.  You  are  no  son  of  mine 
henceforward.  Do  you  thirdv  I  will  have  my  daughter  pol- 
luted by  the  company  of  an  infidel  and  a  blasphemer  ?" 

"  I  will  go,"  I  answered  fiercely ;  "  I  can  get  my  own  liv- 
ing, at  all  events  I"  And  before  I  had  time  to  think,  I  had 
rushed  up-stairs,  packed  up  my  bundle,  not  forgetting  the 
precious  books,  and  was  on  my  way  through  the  frosty  echo- 
ing streets  under  the  cold  glare  of  the  winter's  moon. 

I  had  gone  perhaps  half  a  mile,  when  the  thought  of  home 
rushed  over  me — the  little  room  where  I  had  spent  my  life — 
the  scene  of  all  my  childish  joys  and  sorrows — which  I  should 
never  see  again,  for  I  felt  that  my  departure  was  for  ever. 
Then  I  longed  to  see  my  mother  once  again — -not  to  speak  to 
her — for  I  was  at  once  too  proud  and  too  cowardly  1o  do  tluwt 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         n» 

— but  to  have  a  look  at  her  through  the  window.  One  look, 
lor  all  the  while,  though  I  was  boiling  over  wiih  rage  and 
indignation,  I  felt  that  it  was  all  on  the  surface — that  in  the 
depths  of  our  hearts  I  loved  her  and  she  loved  me.  And  yet 
I  wished  to  be  angrj%  wished  to  hate  her.  Strange  contra- 
diction of  the  flesh  and  spirit  I 

Hastily  and  silently  I  retraced  my  steps  to  the  house. 
The  gate  was  padlocked.  I  cautiously  stole  ovor  the  palings 
to  the  window — the  shutter  was  closed  and  fast.  I  longed 
to  knock — I  lifted  my  hand  to  the  door,  and  dare  not;  indeed, 
I  knew  that  it  was  useless,  in  my  dread  of  my  mother's  habit 
of  stern  determination.  That  room — that  mother  I  never  1/ 
saw  again.  I  turned  away  ;  sickened  at  heart,  I  was  clam-/ 
bering  back  again,  looking  behind  rne  toward  the  window, 
when  I  felt  a  strong  grip  on  my  collar,  and  turning  round, 
had  a  policeman's  lantern  flashed  in  my  face 

"  Hullo,  young  'un,  and  what  do  you  want  here  ?"  with  a 
strong  emphasis,  after  the  fashion  of  policemen,  on  all  his 
pronouns. 

"  Hush  I  or  you'll  alarm  my  mother  I"' 

"  Oh  I  eh  I  Forgot  the  latch-key  you  sucking  Don  Juau 
that's  it,  is  it  ?     Late  home  from  the  Victory  ?" 

I  told  him  simply  how  the  case  stood,  and  entreated  him' 
to  get  me  a  night's  lodging,  assuring  him  that  my  mother 
would  not  admit  me,  or  I  ask  to  be  admitted. 

The  policeman  seemed  puzzled,  but  after  scratching  his  hat 
in  lieu  of  his  head  for  some  seconds,  replied, 

"  This  here  is  the  dodge — you  goes  outside  and  lies  down 
on  the  kerb-stone  ;  whereby  I  espies  you  a-sleeping  in  the 
.streets,  contrary  to  act  o'  parliament ;  whereby  it  is  my  duty 
to  take  you  to  the  station-house  ;  whereby  you  gets  a  night's 
lodging  free  gracious  for  nothing,  and  company  perwided  by 
her  Majesty." 

"Oh,  not  to  the  station-house!"  I  cried,  in  shame  and 
terror. 

"  Werry  well  ;  then  you  must  keep  moving  all  night  con- 
tinually, M'hereby  you  avoids  the  hact ;  or  else  you  goes  to  a 
twopenny-rope  shop  and  gets  a  lie  down.  And  your  bundle 
you'd  best  leave  at  my  house.  Twopenny-rope  society  a'n't 
particular.  I'm  going  ofi'  my  beat ;  you  walk  home  with 
me  and  leave  your  traps.  Every  body  knows  me — Costello, 
V  21,  that's  my  number." 

So  on  I  went  with  the  kind-hearted  man,  who  preached 
colemnly  to  me  all  the  way  on  the  fifth  commandment.     But 


56         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

I  heard  very  little  of  it ;  for  before  I  had  proceeded  a  quartc  > 
of  a  mile,  a  deadly  faintness  and  dizziness  came  over  me,  J 
staggered,  and  fell  against  the  railings. 

"  And  have  you  been  a-drinking  arter  all  V 
"  I  never — a  drop  in  my  hfe — nothing  but  bread-and-watei 
this  fortnight." 

And  it  vi'as  true.  I  had  been  paying  for  my  own  food,  and 
had  stinted  myself  to  such  an  extent,  that  between  starvation, 
want  of  sleep,  and  over  exertion,  I  was  worn  to  a  shadow, 
and  the  last  drop  had  filled  the  cup  ;  the  evening's  scene  and 
its  consequences  had  been  too  much  for  me,  and  in  the  middle 
of  an  attempt  to  explain  matters  to  the  policeman,  I  dropped 
on  the  pavement,  bruising  my  face  heavily. 

He  picked  me  up,  put  me  under  one  arm  and  my  bundle 
under  the  other,  and  was  proceeding  on  his  march,  when  three 
men  came  rollicking  up. 

"  Hullo,  Poleax—Costello— What's  that  ?  Work  for  us  1 
A  dem  unpleasant  body  ?" 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Bromley,  sir  I  Hope  you're  well,  sir  I  Werry 
lum  go  this  here,  sir  I  I  finds  this  cove  in  the  streets  He 
says  his  mother  turned  him  out  o'  doors.  He  seems  very  fair 
spoken,  and  very  bad  in  he's  head,  and  very  bad  in  he's  cb.^st, 
and  very  bad  in  he's  legs,  he  does.  And  I  can't  come  to  no 
conclusion  respecting  my  conduct  in  this  here  case,  nohow  I ' 
"  Memorialize  the  Health  of  Towns  Commission,"  sug- 
gested one. 

"  Bleed  him  in  the  great  toe/'  said  the  second. 
"  Put  a  blister  on   the  back  of  his  left  eye-ball,"  said  a 
third. 

"Case  of  male  asterisks,"  observed  the  first.     Kj.  Aqua> 

pumpis  puraj  quantum  suff.     Applicatur  extero  pro  re  nata. 

J.  Bromley,  M.D.,  and  don't  he  wish  he  may  get  through  I'' 

"  Tip  us  your  daddle,  my  boy,"  said  the  second  speaker. 

I'll  tell  you  what,  Bromley,  this  fellow's  very  bad.     He's  got 

no  more  pulse  than  the  Pimlico  sewer.     Run  him  into  the 

next  pot'us.     Here — you   lay  hold  of  him,   Bromley — that 

last  round  with  the  cabman  nearly  put  my  humerus  out." 

The  huge,  burly,  pea-jacketed  medical  student — for  such  I 

saw  at  once  he  was — laid  hold  of  me  on  the  right,  tenderly 

enough,  and  walked  me  ofi' between  him  and  the  policeman. 

I  lell  again  into  a  faintness,  from  which  I  was  awakened 

by  being  shoved  through  the  folding-doors  of  a  gin  shop,  into 

a  glare  of  light  and  hubbub  of  blackguardism,  and  placed  on 

a  settle,  while  my  conductor  called  out. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOU  AND  POKT.         5V 

"  Pols  round,  INIary,  and  a  go  of  brandy  hot  with,  for  the 
patient.  Here,  young  'nn  ;  toss  it  ofij  it'll  make  your  hair 
grow." 

I  feebly  answered  that  I  never  had  drunk  any  thing  stronger 
than  water. 

"  High  time  to  begin  then  ;  no  wonder  you're  so  ill.  Weil, 
if  you  won't,  I'll  make  you — " 

And  taking  my  head  under  his  arm,  he  seized  me  by  the 
nose,  while  another  poured  the  liquor  down  my  throat — and 
certainly  it  revived  me  at  once. 

A  drunken  drab  pulled  another  drunken  drab  ofi^the  settle 
to  make  room  for  the  "  poor  young  man  ;"  and  I  sat  there 
with  a  confused  notion  that  something  strange  and  dreadful 
had  happened  to  me,  while  the  party  drained  their  respective 
quarts  of  porter,  and  talked  over  tlie  last  boat-race  with  the 
Leander. 

"Now  then,  gen'l'nien,"  said  the  policeman,  "if  you  think 
he's  recovered,  we'll  take  him  home  to  his  mother;  she  ought 
for  to  take  him  in,  surely." 

"Yes,  if  she  has  as  much  heart  in  her  as  a  dried  walnut.' 

But  I  resisted  stoutly  ;  though  I  longed  to  vindicate  my 
mother's  aflection,  yet  I  could  not  face  her.  I  entreated  to 
be  taken  to  the  station-house  ;  threatened,  in  my  desperation, 
to  break  the  bar  glasses,  which,  like  Doll  Tearsheet's  abuse, 
only  elicited  from  the  policeman  a  solemn  "Very  well ;"  and, 
under  the  unwonted  excitement  of  the  brandy,  struggled  so 
fiercely,  and  talked  so  incoherently,  that  the  medical  students 
interfered. 

"  We  shall  have  this  fellow  in  phrenitis,  or  laryngitis,  or 
dothen-enteritis,  or  some  other  itis,  before  long,  if  he's  aggra- 
vated." 

"  And  whichever  it  is,  it'll  kill  him.  He  has  no  more 
stamina  left  than  a  yard  of  pump  water." 

"  I  should  consider  him  chargeable  to  the  parish,"  suggest- 
ed the  bar-keeper." 

"  Exactually  so,  my  Solomon  of  licensed  victualers.  Get 
a  workhouse  order  for  him,  Costello." 

"And  I  should  consider,  also,  sir,"  said  the  licensed  vic- 
tualer,  with  increased  importance,  "  having  been  a  guardian 
myself,  and  knowing  the  hact,  as  the  parish  couldn't  refuse, 
because  they're  in  power  to  recover  all  hexpenses  out  of  his 
mother." 

"  To  be  sure  ;  it's  all  the  unnatural  old  witch's  fault." 

"  No,  it  is  not,"  said  I,  faintly. 


5f         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Wait  till  your  opinion's  asked,  yoJing  un.  Go  kick  up 
the  authorities,  policeman." 

"Now  I'll  just  tell  j'ou  how  that'll  work,  gemmen,"  an- 
swered the  policeman,  solemnly.  "  I  goes  to  the  overseer — 
werry  good  sort  o'  man — but  he's  in  bed.  I  knocks  for  half 
an  hour.  He  puts  he's  nightcap  out  o'  windy,  and  sends  me 
to  the  reheving  officer.  Werry  good  sort  of  man  he  too;  but 
he's  in  bed.  I  knocks  for  another  half  hour.  He  puts  he's 
nightcap  out  o'  windy — sends  me  to  the  medical  officer  for  a 
certificate.  Medical  officer's  gone  to  a  midwifery  case.  I 
hunts  him  for  an  hour  or  so.  He's  got  hold  of  a  babby  with 
three  heads,  or  summat  else  ;  and  two  more  women  a-calling 
out  for  him  like  blazes.  '  He'll  come  to-morrow  morning.' 
Now,  I  just  axes  your  opinion  of  that  there  most  procrastina- 
,tionest  go." 

The  big  student,  having  cursed  the  parochial  authorities  in 
general,  oflered  to  pay  for  my  night's  lodging  at  the  public- 
house.  The  good  man  of  the  house  demurred  at  first,  but 
relented  on  being  reminded  of  the  value  of  a  medical  student's 
custom  ;  whereon,  without  more  ado,  tvv'o  of  the  rough  dia- 
monds took  me  between  them,  carried  me  up-stairs,  undressed 
me,  and  put  rnc  into  bed,  as  tenderly  as  if  they  had  been 
women. 

"  He'll  have  the  tantrums  before  morning,  I'm  afraid," 
said  one. 

"  Very  likely  to  turn  to  typhus,"  said  the  other. 

"  Well,  I  suppose — it's  a  horrid  bore,  but 

"What  must  be  must;  man  is  but  dust, 
If  }-ou  can't  get  crumb,  you  must  just  cat  crust. 

Send  me  up  a  go  of  hot  with,  and  I'll  sit  up  with  him  ti.l 
he's  asleep,  dead,  or  better." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  stay  too;  we  may  just  as  well  make  a 
night  of  it  here  as  well  as  any  where  else." 

And  he  pulled  a  short  black  pipe  out  of  his  pocket,  and  sat 
down  to  meditate,  with  his  feet  on  the  hobs  of  the  empty 
grate  ;  the  other  man  went  down  for  the  liquor ;  while  I, 
between  the  bi'andy  and  exhaustion  fell  fast  asleep,  and  never 
stirred  till  I  woke  the  next  morning  with  a  racking  headache, 
and  saw  the  big  student  standing  by  my  bedside,  having,  as 
I  afterward  heard,  sat  by  me  till  four  in  the  morning. 

"  IIuUo,  young  'un,  come  to  your  senses  1  Headache,  eh  ? 
Slightly  comato-crapulosc  ?  We'll  give  you  some  soda  and 
eal  volatile,  and  I'll  pay  liu-  ycnr  breakfast." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POKT.  5r> 

And  so  he  did,  and  when  he  was  joined  by  his  companioiia 
on  their  way  to  St.  George's,  they  were  very  anxious,  having 
heard  my  story,  to  force  a  few  shilUngs  on  me  "  for  luck," 
which,  I  need  not  say,  I  peremptorily  refused,  assuring  them 
that  I  could  and  would  get  my  own  living,  and  never  take  a 
farthing  from  any  man. 

"  That's  a  plucky  dog,  though  he's  a  tailor,"  I  heard  them 
say,  as,  after  overwhelming  them  with  thanks,  and  vowing, 
amid  shouts  of  laughter,  to  repay  them  every  farthing  I  had 
cost  them,  I  took  my  way,  sick  and  stunned,  toward  my  dear 
old  Sandy  Mackaye's  street. 

Rough  diamonds  indeed  I  I  have  never  met  you  again, 
but  I  have  not  forgotten  you.  Your  early  life  may  be  a 
coarse,  too  often  a  profligate  one — but  you  know  the  people, 
and  the  people  know  you  ;  and  your  tenderness  and  care,  be- 
stowed without  hope  of  repayment,  cheers  4aily  many  a  poor 
soul  in  hospital  wards  and  fever-cellars — to  meet  its  reward 
some  day  at  the  people's  hands.  You  belong  to  us  at  heart, 
as  the  Paris  barricades  can  tell.  Alas !  for  the  society  which 
stifles  in  after-life  too  many  of  your  better  feelings,  by  making 
you  mere  flunkies  and  parasites,  dependent  for  your  livelihood 
DM  the  caprices  and  luxuries  of  the  rich. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  DULWICH  GALLERY. 

Sandy  Mackaye  received  me  in  a  characteristic  way — 
growled  at  me  for  half  an  hour  for  quarreling  with  my  mother, 
and  when  I  was  at  my  wit's  end,  suddenly  offered  me  a  bed 
in  his  house  and  the  use  of  his  little  sitting-room — and,  bliss 
too  great  to  hope  I  of  his  books  also  ;  and  when  I  talked  of 
] payment,  told  me  to  hold  my  tongue  and  mind  my  own  busi- 
Iness.  So  I  settled  myself  at  once ;  and  that  very  evening  he 
linstalled  himself  Ss  my  private  tutor,  took  down  a  Latin  book, 
jand  set  me  to  work  on  it. 

"  An'  mind  ye,  laddie,"  said  he,  half  in  jest  and  half  in 
earnest,  "  gin  I  find  ye  playing  truant,  and  reading  a'  sorts  o' 
nonsense  instead  of  minding  the  scholastic  methods  and  pro- 
prieties, I'll  just  bring  ye  in  a  bill  at  the  year's  end  o'  twa 
guineas  a  week  for  lodgings  and  tuition,  and  tak  the  law  o'  ye  , 
so  mind  and  read  what  I  tell  ye.  Do  ye  comprehend  noo  ?'" 
I  did  compiehcnd,  and  obeyed  him,  determining  to  repay 
him  some  day — and  somehow — how  I  did  not  very  clearly 
see.  Thus  I  put  myself  more  or  less  into  the  old  man's 
power ;  foolishly  enough,  the  wise  world  will  say.  But  I  had 
no  suspicion  m  my  character ;  and  I  could  not  look  at  those 
keen  gray  eyes,  when,  after  staring  into  vacancy  during  some 
long  preachment,  they  suddenly  flashed  round  at  me,  and 
through  me,  full  of  fun  and  quaint  thought,  and  kindly 
earnestness,  and  fancy  that  man  less  honest  than  his  face 
seemed  to  proclaim  him. 

By-the-by,  I  have  as  yet  given  no  description  of  the  old 
eccentric's  abode — an  unpardonable  omission,  I  suppose,  in 
these  days  of  Dutch  painting  and  Boz.  But  the  omission 
was  correct,  both  historically  and  aristically,  for  I  had  as  yet 
only  gone  to  him  for  books,  books,  nothing  but  books  ;  and  I 
had  been  blind  to  every  thing  in  his  shop  but  that  fairy-land 
of  shelves,  filled,  in  my  simple  fancy,  with  inexhaustible 
treasures,  wonder-working,  omnipotent,  as  the  magic  seal  of 
Solomon. 

It  was  not  I'll  I  had  been  settled  and  at  work  for  sevcra] 


ALTON  LOCKL:,  TAILOR  AND  POKT.  o^ 

nights  in  his  sanctum,  behind  the  shop,  that  I  bcgau  to  be- 
come conscious  what  a  strange  den  that  sanctum  was. 

It  was  so  dark,  that  without  a  gas-light  no  one  but  he 
could  see  to  read  there,  except  on  very  sunny  days.  Xot  only 
were  the  shelves  which  covered  every  inch  of  wall  crammed 
with  books  and  pamphlets,  but  the  little  window  was  blocked 
up  with  them,  the  floor  was  piled  Avith  bundles  of  them,  in 
some  places  three  feet  deep,  apparently  in  the  wildest  confu- 
sion— though  there  was  some  mysterious  order  in  them  M-hich 
he  understood,  and  symbolized,  I  suppose,  by  the  various 
strange  and  ludicrous  nick-names  on  their  tickets — for  he 
never  was  at  fault  a  moment  if  a  customer  asked  for  a  book, 
though  it  were  buried  deep  in  the  chaotic  stratum.  Out  of 
this  book-alluvium  a  hole  seemed  to  have  been  dug  near  the 
fireplace,  just  big  enough  to  hold  his  arm-chair  and  a  table, 
book-strewn  like  every  thing  else,  and  garnished  with  odds 
and  ends  of  MSS.,  and  a  snufier-tray  containing  scraps  of 
half-smoked  tobacco,  "pipe-dottles,"  as  he  called  them,  which 
were  carefully  resmoked  over  and  over  again,  till  nothing  but 
ash  Avas  left.  His  whole  culinary  utensils — for  he  cooked  as 
well  as  ate  in  this  strange  hold — were  an  old  rusty  kettle, 
which  stood  on  one  hob,  and  a  blue  plate  which,  when  wash- 
ed, stood  on  the  other.  A  barrel  of  true  Aberdeen  meal 
peered  out  of  a  corner,  half  buried  in  books,  and  "  a  keg  o' 
whusky,  the  gift  o'  freens,"  peeped  in  like  case  out  of  another. 

This  was  his  only  food.  "  It  was  a'  poison,"  he  used  to 
say,  "in  London.  Bread  full  o'  alum  and  bones,  and  sic  filth 
—meat  over-driven  till  it  M-as  a'  braxy — water  sopped  wi' 
dead  men's  juice.  Naething  was  safe  but  gude  Scots  par- 
ritch  and  Athol  brose."  He  carried  his  water-horror  so  far 
as  to  walk  some  quarter  of  a  mile  every  morning  to  fill  his 
kettle  at  a  favorite  pump.  "  Was  he  a  cannibal,  to  drink 
out  o'  that  pump  hard-by,  right  under  the  kirkyard  ]"'  But 
it  was  little  he  either  ate  or  drank — he  seemed  to  live  upon 
tobacco.  From  four  in  the  morning  till  twelve  at  nifrht,  the 
pipe  never  left  his  lips,  except  when  he  went  into  the  outer 
shop.  "  It  promoted  meditation,  and  drove  awa'  the  lusts  o' 
the  flesh.  Ech  I  it  was  worthy  o'  that  auld  tyrant  Jamie, 
to  write  his  counter-blast  to  the  poor  man's  freen  I  The 
hypocrite  I  to  gang  preaching  the  virtues  o'  evil-savored 
eraoke  '  ad  dsemones  abigendos' — and  then  rail  again  tobacco, 
as  if  it  was  no  as  gude  for  the  purpose  as  auld  rags  and  horn 
shavings  ?" 

Sandy  Mackaje  had  a  great  fancy  i ir  political  caricatures. 


62  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

rows  of"  which,  there  being  no  room  for  them  on  the  walls, 
hung  on  strings  from  the  ceihng — hke  clothes  hung  out  to  dry 
— and  among  them  dangled  various  books  to  which  he  had 
taken  an  antipathy,  principally  High  Tory  and  Benthamite, 
crucified,  mipaled  through  their  covers,  and  suspended  in  all 
sorts  of  torturing  attitudes.  Among  them,  right  over  the 
table,  figured  a  copy  of  Icon  Basilike,  dressed  up  in  a  paper 
shirt,  all  di'awn  over  with  figures  of  flames  and  devils,  and 
surmounted  by  a  peaked  paper  cap,  hke  a  victim  at  an  mito- 
da-fe.  And  in  the  midst  of  all  this  chaos  grinned  from  the 
chimney-piece,  among  pipes  and  pens,  pinches  of  salt  and 
scraps  of  butter,  a  tall  cast  of  Michael  Angelo's  well  known 
skinless  model — his  pristine  white  defaced  by  a  cap  of  soot 
upon  the  top  of  his  scalpless  skull,  and  every  muscle  and  ten- 
don thrown  into  horrible  relief  by  the  dirt  which  had  lodged 
among  the  cracks.  There  it  stood,  pointing  with  its  ghastly 
arm  toward  the  door,  and  holding  on  its  wrist  a  label  with 
the  following  inscription  : 

Here  stand  I,  the  working-man, 
Get  more  off  me  if  you  can. 

I  questioned  Mackaye  one  evening  about  tho^e  hanged  and 
crucified  books,  and  asked  him  if  he  ever  sold  any  of  them. 

"  On,  ay,"  he  said  ;  "  if  folks  are  fools  enough  to  ask  for 
them,  I'll  just  answer  a  fool  according  to  his  folly." 

'"But,"  I  said,  "Mr.  Mackaye,  do  you  think  it  right  to  sell 
books  of  the  very  opinions  of  which  you  disapprove  so  much  1" 

"  Hoot,  laddie,  it's  just  a  spoiling  o'  the  Egyptians;  so  mind 
yer  book,  and  dinna  talc  in  hand  cases  o'  conscience  for  ither 
Iblk.     Ye'll  ha'  wark  eneugh  wi'  yer  ain  before  ye're  dune." 

And  he  folded  round  his  knees  his  Joseph's  coat,  as  he 
called  it,  an  old  dressing-gown  with  one  plaid  sleeve,  and  one 
blue  one,  red  shawl  skirts,  and  a  black  broadcloth  back,  not 
to  mention  innumerable  patches  of  every  imaginable  stufl^and 
color,  filled  his  pipe,  and  buried  his  nose  in  "  Harrington's 
Oceana."  He  read  at  least  twelve  hours  every  day  of  his 
life,  and  that  exclusively  old  history  and  politics,  though  his 
favorite  books  were  Thomas  Carlyle's  works.  Two  or  three 
evenings  in  the  week,  when  he  had  seen  me  safe  settled  at 
my  studies,  he  used  to  disappear  mysteriously  for  several  hours, 
and  it  was  some  time  before  I  Ibund  out,  by  a  chance  ex- 
pression, that  he  was  attending  some  meeting  or  committee 
of  working  men.  I  begged  him  to  take  me  there  \vith  him. 
But  I  was  stopped  by  a  laconic  answer. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        A 

"  When  ye're  ready." 

"Aiiil  when  shall  1  be  ready,  Mr.  Mackayc ''" 
"  Head  yer  book  till  I  tell  ye." 

And  he  twisted  himself  in  his  best  coat,  which  had  once 
been  black,  sqneczed  ou  his  little  Scotch  cap,  and  went  out. 

I  now  found  myself,  as  the  reader  may  suppose,  in  an  cle- 
ment far  more  congenial  to  my  literary  tastes,  and  wdiich 
compelled  far  less  privation  of  sleep  and  food  in  order  to  find 
time  and  means  for  reading  ;  and  my  health  began  to  mend 
from  the  very  first  day.  But  the  thought  of  my  mother 
haimtcd  me;  and  Mackaye  seemed  in  no  hurry  to  let  me 
escape  from  it,  for  he  insisted  ou  my  writing  to  her  in  a  peni- 
tent strain,  informing  her  of  my  whereabouts,  and  offering  to 
return  home  if  she  should  wish  it.  With  feelings  strangely 
mingled  between  the  desire  of  seeing  her  again  and  the  dread 
of  returning  to  the  old  drudgery  of  surveillance,  I  sent  the 
letter,  and  waited  a  whole  week  Avithout  any  answer.  At 
last,  one  evening,  when  I  returned  from  work,  Sandy  seemed 
in  a  state  of  unusual  exhilaration.  He  looked  at  me  again 
and  again,  M'inking  and  chuckling  to  himself  in  a  way  which 
showed  me  that  his  good  spirits  had  something  to  do  with  my 
concerns ;  but  he  did  not  open  on  the  subject  till  I  hac^  set- 
tled to  my  evening's  reading.  Then,  having  brewed  himself 
rai  unusually  strong  mug  of  whisky-toddy,  and  brought  out 
with  great  ceremony  a  clean  pipe,  he  commenced. 

'•  Alton,  laddie,  I've  been  fiechting  Philistines  for  ye  the 
day." 

"  Ah  I  have  you  heard  iVom  my  mother  ?" 

"  I  wadna  say  that  exactly  ;  but  there's  been  a  gran  baillio 
body  wi'  me  that  calls  himsel'  your  uncle,  and  a  braw  young 
eallant,  a  bairn  o'  his,  I'm  thinking." 

"  Ah  I  that's  my  cousin  George  ;  and  tell  me — do  tell  me, 
what  you  said  to  them." 

"  Ou — that'll  be  mair  concern  o'  mine  than  o'  yourn.  But 
ye're  no  going  back  to  your  mither." 

jNIy  heart  leaped  up  with — joy  ;  there  is  no  denying  it — 
and  then  I  burst  into  tears. 

"  And  she  won't  see  me  ?     Has  she  really  cast  me  off?" 

"  W^hy,  that'll  be  verra  much  as  ye  prosper,  I'm  thinking. 
Ye're  an  unaccreedited  hero,  the  noo,  as  Thomas  Carlyle  has 
it.  '  But  gin  ye  do  weel  by  yoursel,'  saith  the  Psalmist, 
'ye'll  find  a'  men  speak  well  o'  ye' — if  ye  gang  their  gate. 
But  ye're  to  gang  to  see  your  uncle  at  his  shop  o'  Monday 


34         ALTON  LOCKC,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

next,    at  one  o'clock.      Now   stint  your  greeting,  and   read 
awa'." 

On  the  next  Monday  I  took  a  laoliday,  the  first  in  which  I 
had  ever  indulged  myself;  and  having  spent  a  good  hour  in 
scrubbing  away  at  my  best  shoes  and  Sunday  suit,  started,  in 
fear  and  trembling,  for  my  uncle's  "establishment." 

I  was  agreeably  surprised,  on  being  shown  into  the  little 
back  office  at  the  back  of  the  shop,  to  meet  with  a  tolerably 
gracious  reception  from  the  good-natured  Mammonite.  He 
did  not  shake  hands  with  me,  it  is  true  ;  was  I  not  a  poor 
relation  ?  But  he  told  me  to  sit  down,  commended  me  for 
the  excellent  character  which  he  had  of  me  both  from  my 
master  and  Mackaye,  and  then  entered  on  the  subject  of  my 
literary  tastes.  He  heard  I  was  a  precious  clever  fellow. 
No  wonder,  I  came  of  a  clever  stock  ;  his  poor  dear  brother 
had  plenty  of  brains  for  every  thing  but  business.  "  And  you 
see,  my  boy  (with  a  glance  at  the  big  ledgers  and  busy  shop 
without),  "  I  knew  a  thing  or  two  in  my  time,  or  I  should  not 
have  been  here.  But  without  capital,  /  think  brains  a  curse, 
Still  we  must  make  the  best  of  a  bad  matter ;  and  if  you  are 
inclined  to  help  to  raise  the  family  name — not  that  I  think 
much  of  book  writers  myself — poor  starving  devils,  half  of 
them — but  still  people  do  talk  about  them — and  a  man  might 
get  a  snug  thing  as  new.spaper  editor,  with  interest ;  or  clerk 
to  something  or  other — always  some  new  company  in  the 
wind  now — and  I  should  have  no  objection,  if  you  seemed 
likely  to  do  us  credit,  to  speak  a  word  for  you.  I've  none  of 
your  mother's  confounded  puritanical  notions,  I  can  tell  you  ; 
and,  Avhat's  more,  I  have,  tliank  Heaven,  as  fine  a  city  con- 
nection as  any  man.  But  you  must  mind  and  make  yourselt 
a  good  accountant — learn  double  entry  on  the  Italian  method 
— that's  a  good  practical  study  ;  and  if  that  old  Sawney  is 
soft  enough  to  teach  you  other  things  gratis,  he  may  as  well 
teach  you  that  too.  I'll  bet  he  knows  something  about  it — 
the  old  Scotch  fox.  There  now — that'll  do — there's  five 
shillings  for  you — mind  you  don't  lose  them — and  if  I  hear  a 
good  account  of  you,  why.  perhaps — but  there's  no  use  making 
promises." 

At  this  moment  a  tall,  handsome  young  man,  whom  1  did 
not  at  first  recognize  as  my  cousin  George,  swung  into  the 
office,  and  shook  me  cordially  by  the  hand. 

"  Hullo,  Alton,  how  are  you  ]  Why,  I  hear  you're  coming 
out  as  a  regular  genius — breaking  out  in  a  new  jlace,  upon 
my  honor  !     Have  you  done  Avith  him,  governor?" 


ALTON  LOCKE  TAILOR  AND  POET.         65 

"  Well,  I  think  I  have.  I  wish  you'd  have  a  talk  with 
him,  my  boy,  I'm  sorry  I  can't  see  more  of  him,  but  I  have 
to  meet  a  party  on  business  at  the  West-end  at  two,  and 
Alderman  Tumbril  and  family  dine  with  us  this  eveninir, 
don't  they  ?     I  think  our  small  table  will  be  full." 

"  Of  course  it  will.  Come  along  with  me,  and  we'll  have 
a  chat  in  some  quiet  out-of-the-way  place.  This  city  is  really 
so  noisy  that  you  can't  hear  your  own  ears,  as  our  dean  says 
in  lecture." 

So  he  carried  me  ofl',  down  back  streets  and  alleys,  a  little 
puzzled  at  the  extreme  cordiality  of  his  manner.  Perhaps  it 
sprung,  as  I  learned  afterward  to  suspect,  from  his  consistent 
and  perpetual  habit  of  ingratiating  himself  with  every  one 
whom  he  approached.  He  never  cut  a  chimney-sweep  if  he 
knew  him.  And  he  found  it  pay.  The  children  of  this  world 
are  in  their  generation  wiser  than  the  children  of  light. 

Perhaps  it  sprung  also,  as  I  began  to  suspect  in  the  first 
hundred  yards  of  our  walk,  from  the  desire  of  showing  ofl' 
before  me  the  university  clothes,  manners,  and  gossip,  which 
he  had  just  brought  back  with  him  from  Cambridge. 

I  had  not  seen  him  more  than  three  or  four  times  in  my 
life  before,  and  then  he  appeared  to  me  merely  a  tall,  hand- 
some conceited,  slangy  boy.  But  I  now  found  him  much  im- 
proved— in  all  externals  at  least.  He  had  made  it  his  busi- 
ness, I  knew,  to  pertect  himself  in  all  athletic  pursuits  which 
were  open  to  a  Londoner.  As  he  told  me  that  day — he  found 
it  pay,  when  one  got  among  gentlemen.  Thus  he  had  gone 
up  to  Cambridge  a  capital  skater,  rower,  pugilist — and  bil- 
liard player.  Whether  or  not  that  last  accomplishment  ought 
to  be  classed  in  the  list  of  athletic  sports,  he  contrived,  by  his 
own  account,  to  keep  it  in  that  of  paying  ones  In  both  these 
branches  he  seemed  to  have  had  plenty  of  opportunities  of  dis- 
tinguishing himself  at  college  ;  and  his  tall,  powerful  figure 
showed  the  fruit  of  these  exercises  in  a  stately  and  confident, 
almost  martial,  carriage.  Something  jaunty,  perhaps  swag- 
gering, remained  still  in  his  air  and  dress,  which  yet  sat  not 
ungracefully  on  him ;  but  I  could  see  that  he  had  been  mix- 
ing in  society  more  polished  and  artificial  than  that  to  which 
we  had  either  of  us  been  accustomed,  and  in  his  smart  Roch- 
ester, well-cut  trowsers,  and  delicate  French  boots,  he  ex- 
cited, I  will  not  deny  it,  my  boyish  admiration  and  envy. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  as  soon  as  we  were  out  of  the  shop, 
"  which  way  ]  Got  a  holiday  1  And  how  did  you  intend 
to  spend  it  1" 


10  ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOPi  AND  rOP:T. 

"I  wanted  veiy  much,"  I  said,  meekly  ''to  see  the  pm 
tures  at  the  National  Gallery." 

"  Oh  '  ah  I  pictures  don't  pay  ;  but,  if  you  like — much  bet- 
ter ones  at  Duhvich — that's  the  place  to  go  to — you  can  see 
the  others  any  day — and  at  Duhvich,  you  Icnow,  they've  got 
— why  let  me.  see — "  And  he  ran  over  half-a-dozen  outland- 
ish names  of  painters,  which,  as  I  have  never  again  met  with 
them,  I  am  inclined  on  the  whole  to  consider  as  somewhat 
extemporaneous  creations.      However,  I  agreed  to  go. 

"  Ah  I  capital — very  nice  quiet  walk,  and  convenient  for 
,ne — very  little  out  of  my  way  home.  I'll  walk  there  with 
you." 

"  One  word  for  your  neighbor  and  two  for  yourself,"  thought 
I  ;  but  on  we  walked.  To  see  good  pictures  had  been  a  long- 
cherished  hope  of  mine.  Every  thing  beautiful  in  form  or 
color  Avas  beginning  of  late  to  have  an  intense  fascination  for 
me.  I  had,  now  that  I  was  emancipated,  gradually  dared  to 
feed  my  greedy  eyes  by  passing  stares  into  the  print-shop 
windows,  and  had  learnt  from  them  a  thousand  new  notions, 
new  emotions,  new  longings  after  beauties  of  Nature,  which 
seemed  destined  never  to  be  satisfied.  But  pictures,  above 
all,  foreign  ones,  had  been,  in  my  mother's  eyes,  Anathema 
Maranatha,  as  vile  Popish  and  Pagan  vanities,  the  rags  of 
the  scarlet  woman,  no  less  than  the  surplice  itself — and  now, 
when  it  came  to  the  point,  I  hesitated  at  an  act  of  such  awful 
disobedience,  even  though  unknown  to  her.  INIy  cousin,  how- 
ever, laughed  down  ray  scruples,  told  me  I  was  out  of  leading- 
strings  now,  and,  which  was  true  enough,  that  it  was  "a  — 
deal  better  to  amuse  oneself  in  picture  galleries  without  leave, 
than  live  a  life  of  sneaking  and  lying  under  petticoat  govern- 
ment, as  all  home-birds  were  sure  to  do  in  the  long  run." 
And  so  I  went  on,  while  my  cousin  kept  up  a  running  fire 
of  chat  the  whole  way,  intermixing  shrewd,  bold  observations 
upon  every  woman  who  passed,  with  sneers  at  the  fellows  of 
the  college  to  which  we  were  going — their  idleness  and  luxury 
— the  large  grammar-school  which  they  were  bound  by  their 
charter  to  keep  up,  and  did  not — and  hints  about  private 
interest  in  high  quarters,  through  which  their  wealthy  useless- 
ness  had  been  politely  overlooked,  when  all  similar  institutions 
in  the  kingdom  were  subject  to  the  searching  examination  of 
a  government  commission.  Then  there  were  stories  of  boat- 
races  and  gay  noblemen,  breakfast  parties,  and  lectures  on 
Greek  plays, 'flavored  v/ith  a  spice  of  Cambridge  slang,  all 
equally  new  to  me — glimpses  into  a  world  of  A\o:'.Jers-  which 


ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET.         07 

made  ine  feel,  as  I  shambled  along  at  his  side,  trying  to  keep 
step  with  his  strides,  more  M-eakly  and  awkward  and  ignorant 
than  ever. 

AVe  entered  the  gallery.  I  was  in  a  fever  of  expectation. 
The  rich  sombre  light  of  the  rooms,  the  rich  heavy  warmt}) 
of  the  stove-heated  air,  the  brilliant  and  varied  coloring  and 
gilded  frames  which  embroidered  the  walls,  the  hushed  earn- 
estness of  a  few  artists  who  were  copying,  and  the  few  visitors 
who  were  lounging  from  picture  to  i)icture,  struck  me  at  onco 
with  mysterious  awe.  But  my  attention  was  in  a  moment 
concentrated  on  one  figure  opposite  to  me  at  the  furthest 
end.  I  hurried  straight  toward  it.  When  I  had  got  half- 
way up  the  gallery  1  looked  round  for  my  cousin.  He  had 
turned  aside  to  some  picture  of  a  Venus  which  caught  my  eye 
also,  but  wliich,  I  remember  now,  only  raised  in  me  then  a 
shudder  and  a  blusli,  and  a  fancy  that  the  clerg}'mea  must  be 
really  as  bad  as  my  mother  had  taught  me  to  believe,  if  they 
could  allow  in  their  galleries  pictures  of  undressed  Avomen.  I 
have  learnt  to  view  such  things  diflerently  now,  thank  God. 
1  have  learnt  that  to  the  pure  all  things  arc  pure.  I  have 
learnt  the  meaning  of  that  great  saying — the  foundation  of  all 
art,  as  well  as  all  modesty,  all  love,  which  tells  us  how  "  the 
m.iu  and  his  wife  were  both  naked  and  not  ashamed."  Eut 
th;-  book  is  the  history  of  my  mental  growth  ;  and  my  mistakes 
a.-  well  as  my  discoveries  are  steps  in  that  development,  and  ■, 
VAicf  bear  a  lesson  in  them.  -^ 

How  I  have  rambled  I  But  as  that  day  was  the  turning  ,| 
point  of  iny  whole  short  life,  I  may  be  excused  for  lingering  f 
upon  every  feature  of  it. 

Timidly,  but  eagerly,  I  went  up  to  the  picture,  and  stood  / 
entranced  before  it.  It  was  Guido's  St.  Sebastian.  All  the  ' 
world  knows  the  picture,  and  all  the  world  knows,  too,  the 
defects  of  the  master,  though  in  this  instance  he  seems  to  have 
risen  above  himself,  by  a  sudden  inspiration,  into  that  true 
naturalness,  which  is  the  highest  expression  of  the  Spiritual. 
But  the  very  defects  of  the  picture,  its  exaggeration,  its 
theatricality,  were  especially  calculated  to  catch  the  eye  of  a 
boy  awaking  out  of  the  narrow  dullness  of  Puritanism.  The 
breadth  and  vastness  of  light  and  shade  upon  those  manly 
limbs,  so  grand  and  yet  so  delicate,  standing  out  against  the 
background  oi"  lurid  night,  the  helplessness  of  the  bound  arms, 
the  arrow  quivering  in  the  shrinking  side,  the  upturned  brow, 
the  eyes  in  whose  dark  depths  enthusiastic  faith  seemed  con- 
j[ueriug  agony  and  shame,  the  parted  lips,  which  seemed  to 


68         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAIL  OR  AND  POET. 

aslc,  like  those  martyrs  in  the  Revelations,  reproachful,  half- 
resigned,  "O  Lord  how  long? — "  Gazing  at  that  picture 
since,  I  have  understood  how  ihe  idolatry  of  painted  saints 
could  arise  in  the  minds  even  of  the  most  educated,  who  were 
not  disciplined  by  that  stern  regard  for  fact  which  is — or  onght 
to  be — the  strength  of  Englishmen.  I  have  understood  the 
heart  of  that  Italian  girl,  whom  some  such  picture  of  St. 
Sebastian,  perhaps  this  very  one,  excited,  as  the  Venus  of 
Praxiteles  the  Grecian  boy,  to  hopeless  love,  madness,  and 
death.  Then  I  had  never  heard  of  St.  Sebastian.  I  did  not 
dream  of  any  connection  between  that,  or  indeed  any  picture, 
and  Christianity  ;  and  yet,  as  I  stood  before  it,  I  seemed  to 
be  face  to  face  with  the  ghosts  of  my  old  Puritan  forefathers, 
to  see  the  spirit  which  supported  them  on  pillories  and 
scaffolds — the  spirit  of  that  true  St.  Margaret,  the  Scottish 
maiden  whom  Claverhouse  and  his  soldiers  chained  to  a  post 
on  the  sea-sands  to  die  by  inches  in  thv.^  ri.sing  tide,  till  the 
sound  of  her  hymns  was  slowly  drowned  in  the  dash  of  the 
hungry,  leaping  waves.  My  heart  swelled  within  me,  my  eyes 
seemed  bursting  from  my  head,  with  the  intensity  of  my  gaze, 
and  great  tears,  I  knew  not  why,  rolled  slowly  down  my  face. 
A  woman's  voice  close  to  me,  gentle  yet  of  deepei  cone  than 
most,  woke  me  from  my  trance. 

"  You  seem  to  be  deeply  interested  in  that  picture  ?" 
I  looked  round,  yet  not  at  the  speaker.  My  eyes,  before  they 
could  meet  hers,  were  caught  by  an  apparition  the  most  beau- 
tiful I  had  ever  yet  beheld.  And  what — what — have  I  seen 
equal  to  her  since  ?  Strange,  that  I  should  love  to  talk  of 
her.  Strange,  that  I  fret  at  myself  now  because  I  can  not 
set  down  on  paper  line  by  line,  and  hue  by  hue,  that  wonderful 

loveliness  of  which But  no  matter.     Had  I  but  such 

an  imagination  as  Petrarch,  or  rather,  perhaps,  had  I  his  de- 
liberate cold  self-consciousness,  what  volumes  of  similes  and 
conceits  I  might  pour  out,  connecting  that  peerless  flxce  and 
figure  with  all  lovely  things  which  heaven  and  earth  contain. 
As  it  is,  because  I  can  not  say  all,  I  will  say  nothing,  but  re- 
peat to  the  end  again  and  again.  Beautiful,  beautiful,  beau- 
tiful, beyond  all  statue,  picture,  or  poet's  dream.  Seventeen 
— slight  but  rounded,  a  mask  and  features  delicate  and  reg- 
ular, as  if  fresh  from  the  chisel  of  Praxiteles — I  must  try  to 
describe,  after  all,  you  see — a  skin  of  alabaster  (privet  flowers, 
Horace  and  Ariosto  would  have  said,  more  true  to  Nature), 
Btained  with  tlie  faintest  flush  ;  auburn  hair,  with  that  pecu- 
liar crisped  wave  seen  in  the  old  Italian  pictures,  and  the 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POKT.         6« 

■warm,  dark  hazel  eyes  which  so  often  accompany  it ;  hps  likt 
a  thread  of  vermiUon,  somewhat  too  thin,  perhaps — bnt  \ 
thought  little  of  that  then  ;  with  such  perfect  finish  and  grace 
in  every  line  and  hue  of  her  features  and  her  dress,  down  to 
the  little  fingers  and  nails  which  showed  through  her  thin 
gloves,  that  she  seemed  to  ray  fancy  fresh  from  the  innermost 
chamber  of  some  enchanted  palace,  "  M'here  no  air  of  heaven 
could  visit  her  cheek  too  roughly."  I  dropped  my  eyes,  quite 
dazzled.  The  question  was  repeated  by  a  lady  who  stood 
with  her,  whose  face  I  remarked  then — as  I  did  to  the  last, 
alas  ! — too  little  ;  dazzled  at  the  first  by  outward  beauty, 
perhaps  because  so  utterly  unaccustomed  to  it. 

"It  is  indeed  a  wonderful  picture,"  I  said,  timidly.  "May 
I  ask  what  is  the  subject  of  it  ?' 

"Oh!  don't  you  know?"  said  the  young  beauty,  with  a 
smile  that  thrilled  through  me.      "It  is  St.  Sebastian." 

"I — I  am  very  much  ashamed,"  I  answered,  coloring  up, 
"  but  I  do  not  know  Avho  St.  Sebastian  was.  Was  he  a 
Popish  saint  ?" 

A  tall,  stately  old  man,  who  stood  with  the  tM'o  ladies, 
laughed  kindly.  "No,  not  till  they  made  him  one  against  his 
will ;  and  at  the  same  time,  by  putting  him  in  the  mill  which 
grinds  old  folks  young  again,  converted  him  from  a  grizzled 
old  Roman  tribune  into  the  young  Apollo  of  Popery." 

"You  will  puzzle  your  hearer,  my  dear  uncle,"  said  the. 
same  deep-toned  woman's  voice  which  had  first  spoken  to  me. 
"As  you  volunteered  the  saint's  name,  Lillian,  you  shall  also 
tell  his  history." 

Simply  and  shortly,  with  just  feeling  enough  to  send  through 
me  a  fresh  thrill  of  delighted  interest,  without  trenching  the 
least  on  the  most  stately  reserve,  she  told  me  the  well-known 
history  of  the  saint's  martyrdom. 

If  I  seem  minute  in  my  description,  let  those  who  read  my 
story  remember  that  such  courteous  dignity,  however  natural, 
I  am  bound  to  believe,  it  is  to  them,  was  to  me  an  utterly 
new  excellence  in  human  nature.  All  my  mother's  Spartan 
nobleness  of  manner  seemed  unexpectedly  combined  with  all 
my  little  sister's  careless  ease. 

"  What  a  beautiful  poem  the  story  would  make  I"  said  I, 
as  soon  as  I  recovered  my  thoughts. 

"Well  spoken,  young  man,"  answered  the  old  gentleman. 
"Let  us  hope  that  your  seeing  a  subject  for  a  good  poem  will 
be  the  first  step  toward  your  writing  one." 

As  he  spoke,  he  bent  on  me  two  clear  gray  eyes,  full  of 


70  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET. 

kindliness,  mingled  with  practiced  discernment.  I  saw  that 
he  was  evidently  a  clergyman  ;  but  Avhat  his  tight  silk  stock- 
ings and  peculiar  hat  denoted  I  did  not  know.  There  was 
jbout  him  the  air  cf  a  man  accustomed  equally  to  thought, 
to  men,  and  to  power.  And  I  remarked  somewhat  mali- 
ciously, that  my  cousin,  who  had  strutted  up  toward  us,  on 
seeing  me  talking  to  two  ladies,  the  instant  he  caught  sight 
of  those  black  silk  stockings  and  that  strange  hat,  fell  sud- 
denly in  countenance,  and  sidling  off  somewhat  meekly  into 
the  back-ground,  became  absorbed  in  the  examination  of  a 
Holy  Family. 

I  answered  something  humbly,  I  forget  what,  which  led  to 
a  conversation.  They  questioned  me  as  to  my  name,  my 
mother,  my  business,  my  studies  ;  Avhile  I  reveled  in  the  de- 
hght  of  stolen  glances  at  my  new-found  Venus  Victrix,  who 
was  as  forward  as  any  of  them  in  her  questions  and  her  in- 
terest. Perhaps  she  enjoyed,  at  least  she  could  not  help 
seeing,  the  admiration  for  herself  Avhich  I  took  no  pains  to 
conceal.  At  last  the  old  man  cut  the  conversation  short  by  a 
quiet  "Good  morning,  sir,"  which  astonished  me.  I  had 
never  heard  words  whose  tone  was  so  courteous  and  yet  so 
chillingly  peremptory.  As  they  turned  away,  he  repeated  to 
himself  once  or  twice,  as  if  to  fix  them  in  his  mind,  my  name 
and  my  master's,  and  awoke  in  me,  perhaps  too  thoughtlessly, 
a  tumult  of  vague  hopes.  Once  and  again  the  beauty  and  her 
companion  looked  back  toward  me,  and  seemed  talking  of  me, 
and  my  face  was  burning  scarlet,  when  my  cousin  swung  up 
in  his  hard,  off-hand  way. 

"By  Jove,  Alton,  my  boy  I  you're  a  knowing  fellow.  I 
congratulate  you  I  At  your  years,  indeed  I  to  rise  a  dean  and 
two  beauties  at  the  first  throw,  and  hook  them  fast  I" 

"A  dean  I"  I  said,  in  some  trepidation. 

"Ay,  a  live  dean — didn't  you  see  the  cloven  foot  slicking- 
out  from  under  his  shoe-buckle  1  What  news  for  your  mother  I 
What  will  the  ghosts  of  your  grandfathers  to  the  seventh  gen- 
eration say  to  this,  Alton  1  Colloguing  in  pagan  picture- 
galleries  with  shovel-hatted  Philistines  I  And  that's  not  the 
worst,  Alton,"  he  ran  on.  "  Those  daughters  of  Moab — those 
daughters  of  Moab — " 

"Hold  your  tongue,"  I  said,  almost  crying  with  vexation. 

"  Look  thei-e,  if  you  want  to  save  your  good  temper.  There, 
she  is  looking  back  again — not  at  poor  me,  though.  What 
a  lovely  girl  she  is  I — and  a  real  lady— Z'a//  noble — the  ra'al 
genuine  grit,  as  Sam  Slick  says,  and  no  mistake.     By  Jove, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  PORT  71 

what  a  face  I  what  hands  I  what  feet  I  what  a  figure — iii 
spile  of  crinohnes  and  all  abominations  I  And  didn't  she  know 
it  ?  And  didn't  she  know  that  you  knew  it  too  V  And  he 
ran  on,  descanting  coarsely  on  beauties  which  I  dared  not  even 
have  profaned  by  naming,  in  a  way  that  made  me,  I  knew 
not  why,  mad  with  jealousy  and  indignation.  She  seemed 
mine  alone  in  all  the  world.  AVhat  right  had  any  other  . 
human  being,  above  all,  he,  to  dare  to  mention  her  1  1  turned 
again  to  my  St.  Sebastian.  That  movement  only  brought  on 
me  a  fresh  volley  of  banter. 

"Oh,  that's  the  dodge,  is  it,  to  catch  intellectual  fine  ladies? 
to  fall  into  an  ecstatic  attitude  before  a  picture — But  then  we 
must  have  Alton's  genius,  you  know,  to  find  out  which  the 
fine  pictures  are.  I  must  read  up  that  subject,  bv-the-by. 
It  might  be  a  paying  one  among  the  dons.  For  the  present, 
here  goes  in  for  an  attitude.  "Will  this  do,  Alton  ]"'  And  he 
arranged  himself  admiringly  before  the  picture  in  an  attitude 
so  absurd  and  yet  so  graceful,  that  I  did  not  know  whether 
to  laugh  at  him  or  hate  him. 

"  At  all  events,"  he  added,  dryly,  "  it  will  be  as  good  as 
playing  the  evangelical  at  Carus's  tea-parties,  or  taking  the 
tacrament  regularly  for  fear  one's  testimonials  should  be  re- 
fused." And  then  he  looked  at  me,  and  through  me,  in  his 
intense,  confident  way,  to  see  that  his  hasty  w'ords  had  not 
injured  him  M'ith  me.  He  used  to  meet  one's  eye  as  boldly 
as  any  man  I  ever  saw.;  but  it  was  not  the  simple  gaze  of 
honesty  and  innocence,  but  an  imperious,  searchinir  look,  as 
if  defying  scrutiny.  His  was  a  true  mesmeric  eye,  if  ever 
there  was  one.      No  wonder  it  worked  the  miracles  it  did. 

"Come  along,"  he  said,  suddenly  seizing  my  arm.  "Don't 
you  see  they're  leaving  ]  Out  of  the  gadery  after  them,  and 
get  a  good  look  at  the  carriage  and  the  arms  upon  it.  I  saw 
one  standing  there  as  we  came  in.  It  may  pay  us — you,  that 
is — to  know  it  again." 

We  Avent  out,  I  holding  him  back,  I  knew  not  why,  and 
arrived  at  the  outer  gate  just  in  time  to  see  them  enter  the 
carriage  and  drive  oft^.     I  gazed  to  the  last,  but  did  not  stir. 

"  Good  boy,"  he  said  ;  "  knowing  still.  If  you  had  bowed 
or  showed  the  least  sign  of  recognition,  you  would  have  broken 
the  spell." 

But  I  hardly  heard  what  he  said,  and  stood  gazing  stupidly 
after  the  carriage  as  it  disappeared.     I  did  not  know  theu   i 
what  had  happened  to  me.     I  know  now,  alas  I  too  well.         / 


CHAPTER  VII. 
FIRST  LOVE. 

TmrLY  I  said,  I  did  not  know  what  had  happened  to  me. 
I  did  not  attempt  to  analyze  the  intense,  overpowering  instinct 
which  from  that  moment  made  the  lovely  vision  I  had  seen 
the  lodestar  of  all  my  thoughts.  Even  now,  I  can  see  noth- 
ing in  those  feelings  of  mine  but  simple  admiration — idolatry 
if  you  will — of  physical  beauty.  Doubtless  there  was  more — 
doubtless — I  had  seen  pretty  faces  before,  and  knew  that  they 
were  pretty,  but  they  had  passed  from  my  retina,  like  the 
prints  of  beauties  which  I  saw  in  the  shop  windows,  without 
exciting  a  thought — even  a  conscious  emotion  of  complacency, 
But  this  face  did  not  pass  away.  Day  and  night  I  saw  it, 
just  as  I  had  seen  it  in  the  gallery.  The  same  playful  smile — 
the  same  glance,  alternately  turned  to  me  and  the  glowing 
picture  above  her  head — and  that  was  all  I  saw  or  felt.  No 
child  ever  nestled  upon  its  mother's  shoulder  with  feelings 
more  celestially  pure,  than  those  with  which  I  counted  over 
day  and  night  each  separate  lineament  of  that  exceeding  love- 
liness. Romantic  ?  extravagant  ?  Yes ;  if  the  world  be 
right  in  calling  a  passion  romantic  just  in  proportion  as  it  is 
not  merely  hopeless,  but  pure  and  unselfish,  drawing  its  deli- 
cious power  from  no  hope  or  faintest  desire  of  enjoyment,  but 
merely  from  simple  delight  in  its  object — then  my  passion 
was  most  romantic.  I  never  thought  of  disparity  in  rank. 
Why  should  I  ?  That  could  not  blind  the  eyes  of  my  imag- 
ination. She  was  beautiful,  and  that  was  all,  and  all  in  all, 
to  me  ;  and  had  our  stations  been  exchanged,  or  more  than 
exchanged  ;  had  I  been  King  Cophetua,  and  she  the  beggar- 
maid,  I  should  have  gloried  in  her  just  as  much. 

Beloved  sleepless  hours,  which  I  spent  in  picturing  that 
scene  to  myself,  with  all  the  brilliance  of  fresh  recollection  ! 
Beloved  hours  I  how  soon  you  passed  away  I  Soon — soon  my 
imagination  began  to  fade ;  the  traces  of  her  features  on  my 
mind's  eye  became  confused  and  dim  ;  and  then  came  over 
me  the  fierce  desire  to  see  her  again,  that  I  might  renew  the 
freshness  of  that  charming  image.  Thereon  grew  up  an  ago- 
ny of  longing — an  agony  of  weeks,  and  months,  and  years 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         73 

Where  could  I  find  that  face  again  ?  Avas  my  ruling  thought 
from  morning  until  eve.  I  knew  that  it  was  hopeless  to  look 
for  her  at  the  gallery  where  I  had  first  seen  her.  My  only 
hope  was,  that  at  some  place  of  public  resort  at  the  West-end 
I  might  catch,  if  but  for  a  moment,  an  inspiring  glance  of 
that  radiant  countenance.  I  lingered  round  the  Burton  Arch 
and  Hyde  Park  Gate — but  in  vain.  I  peered  into  every  car- 
riage, every  bonnet  that  passed  me  in  the  thoroughfares — in 
vain.  I  stood  patiently  at  the  doors  of  exhibitions,  and  con- 
certs, and  playhouses,  to  be  shoved  back  by  policemen,  and 
insulted  by  footmen — but  in  vain.  Then  I  tried  the  fashion- 
able churches,  one  by  one  ;  and  sat  in  the  free  scats,  to  listen 
to  prayers  and  sermons,  not  a  word  of  which,  alas  I  1  cared 
to  understand,  with  my  eyes  searching  carefully  every  pew 
and  gallery,  face  by  face  ;  always  fancying,  in  self-torturing 
waywardness,  that  she  might  be  just  in  the  part  of  the  gal- 
lery which  I  could  not  see.  Oh  I  miserable  days  of  hope  de- 
I'erred,  making  the  heart  sick  !  Miserable  gnawing  of  disap- 
pointment with  which  I  returned  at  nightfall,  to  force  myself 
down  to  my  books !  Equally  miserable  rack  of  hope  on  which 
my  nerves  were  stretched  every  morning  when  I  rose,  count- 
ing the  hours  till  my  day's  work  should  be  over,  and  my  mad 
search  begin  again  I  At  last  "  my  torment  did  by  length  of 
time  become  my  element."  I  returned  steadily  as  ever  to  the 
studies  which  I  had  at  first  neglected,  much  to  Mackaye's 
wonder  and  disgust ;  and  the  vain  hunt  after  that  face  be- 
came a  part  of  my  daily  task,  to  be  got  through  with  the 
same  dull,  sullen  effort,  with  which  all  I  did  was  now  trans- 
acted. 

Mackaye,  I  suppose,  at  first,  attributed  my  absences,  and 
idleness  to  my  having  got  into  bad  company.  But  it  was 
some  weeks  before  he  gently  enough  told  me  his  suspicious, 
and  they  were  answered  by  a  burst  of  tears,  and  a  passionate 
denial,  which  set  them  at  rest  forever.  But  I  had  not  courage 
to  tell  him  what  was  the  matter  with  me.  A  sacred  modesty, 
as  well  as  a  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  explaining  my  emo- 
tioas,  held  me  back.  I  had  a  half-dread,  too,  to  confess  the 
whole  truth,  of  his  ridiculing  a  fancy,  to  say  the  least,  so  ut- 
terly impracticable  ;  and  my  only  confidant  was  a  picture  in 
the  National  Gallery,  in  one  of  the  faces  of  which  I  had  dis- 
covered some  likeness  to  my  Venus ;  and  there  I  used  to  ero 
and  stand  at  spare  half  hours,  and  feel  the  happier  for  staring 
and  staring,  and  whispering  to  the  dead  canvas  the  extrava- 
gances of  my  idolatry. 

D 


74         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

^  But  soon  the  bitter  draught  of  disappointment  b(  gan  to 
breed  harsher  thoughts  in  me.  Those  fine  gentlemen  who 
rode  past  me  in  the  park,  who  rolled  by  in  carriages,  sitting 
face  to  face  with  ladies,  as  richly  dressed,  if  not  as  beautiful, 
as  she  was — they  could,  see  her  when  they  liked — why  not  I  ? 
What  right  had  their  eyes  to  a  feast  denied  to  mine  1  They, 
loo,  who  did  not  appreciate,  adore  that  beauty  as  I  did — ibr 

ji\'ho  could  worship  her  like  me  ?  At  least  they  had  not  suf- 
fered for  her  as  I  had  done  ;  they  had  not  stood  in  rain  and 
frost,  fatigue  and  blank  despair — watching — watching — month 
after  month ;  and  I  was  making  coats  for  them  !  The 
very  garment  I  was  stitching  at,  might,  in  a  day's  time,  be 
in  her  presence — touching  her  dress ;  and  its  wearer  bow- 
ing, and  smiling,  and  whispering — he  had  not  bought  that 
bliss  by  watching  in  the  rain.  It  made  me  mad  to  think 
of  it. 

I  will  say  no  more  about  it.  That  is  a  period  of  my  lift? 
on  which  I  can  not  even  now  look  back  without  a  shudder. 

At  last,  after  perhaps  a  year  or  more,  I  summoned  up  cour- 
age to  tell  my  story  to  Sandy  Mackaye,  and  burst  out  with 
complaints  more  pardonable,  perhaps,  than  reasonable. 

"  Why  have  I  not  as  good  a  right  to  speak  to  her,  to  move 
in  the  same  society  in  which  she  moves,  as  any  of  the  fops 
of  the  day  %  Is  it  because  these  aristocrats  are  more  intel- 
lectual than  I  ]  I  should  not  fear  to  measure  brains  against 
most  of  them  now ;  and  give  me  the  opportunities  which  they 
have,  and  I  would  die  if  I  did  not  outstrip  them.  Why  have 
I  not  those  opportunities  ?  Is  that  fault  of  others  to  be  visit- 
ed on  me  %  Is  it  because  they  are  more  refined  than  I  \ 
What  right  have  they,  if  this  said  refinement  be  so  necessary 
a  qualification,  a  difference  so  deep — that  without  it,  there  is 
to  be  an  everlasting  gulf  between  man  and  man — what  right 
have  they  to  refuse  to  let  me  share  in  it,  to  give  me  the  op- 
portunity of  acquiring  it  ?" 

"  Wad  ye  ha'  them  set  up  a  dancing  academy  for  working 
men,  wi'  '  manners  tocht  here  to  the  lower  classes]'  They'll 
no  break  up  their  ain  monopoly  ;  trust  them  for  it  I  Na  :  if 
ye  want  to  get  amang  them,  I'll  tell  ye  the  way  o't.  Write 
a  book  o'  poems,  and  ca'  it  '  A  Voice  fra'  the  Goose,  by  a 
Working  Tailor' — and  then — why,  after  a  dizen  years  or  so 
of  starving  scribbling  for  your  bread,  ye'll  ha'  a  chance  o'  find- 
'ug  yoursel'  a  lion,  and  a  flunkey,  and  a  licker  o'  trenchers — 
anc  that  jokes  for  his  dinner,  and  sells  his  soul  for  a  fine  leddy's 
pmilo — till  ye  presume  to  think  they're  in  earnest,  and  fancy 


ALTON  LOCKi:.  TAILOR  AND  POET.  75 

yuursel'  a  man  o'  the  same  blude  as  they,  and  fa'  in  love  wi' 
one  of  them — and  then  they'll  teach  you  your  level,  and  send 
ye  off  to  gauge  whuslcy  like  Burns,  or  leave  ye  to  die  in  a 
ditch  as  they  did  wi'  puir  Thorn." 

"  Let  me  die,  any  Avhere  or  any  how,  if  I  can  but  be  near 
her — see  her — " 

"  Married  to  aiiither  body  ?  and  nursing  auither  body's 
bairus  ?  Ah  boy,  boy — do  ye  think  that  was  what  ye  were 
made  for ;  1o  please  yersel'  wi'  a  woman's  smiles,  or  e'en  a 
woman's  kisses — or  to  please  ^-ersel'  at  all  ]  How  do  ye  ex- 
pect ever  to  be  happy,  or  strong,  or  a  man  at  a',  as  long  as 
ye  go  on  looking  to  enjoy  yersel' — yersel'  ?  I  ha'  tried  it.  3Iony 
was  the  year  I  looked  lor  naught  but  my  ain  pleasure,  and  got 
it  too,  when  it  was  a' 

Sandy  ]\Iackaye,  bonny  Sandy  jNIackayc, 

There  he  sits  singing  the  iang  simmer's  day; 

Lassies  gae  to  him, 

And  kiss  him,  and  woo  him — 

Na  bird  is  sa  merry  as  Sandy  ^lackaye. 

An'  muckle  good  cam'  o't.  Ye  may  fancy  I'm  talking  like  a 
sour,  disappointed  anld  carle.  But  I  tell  ye  nay.  I've  got 
that's  worth  living  lor.  though  I  am  down-hearted  at  times, 
and  fancy  a's  wrong,  and  there's  na  hcpe  lor  us  on  earth,  we 
be  a'  sic  liars — a'  liars,  I  think  ;  '  a  universal  liars-rock  sub- 
strawtimi,'  as  Mr.  Carlyle  says.  I'm  a  great  liar  often  niysel', 
specially  when  I'm  praying.  Do  ye  think  I'd  live  on  here  in 
this  meeserable  crankit  auld  bane-barrel  of  a  body,  if  it  was 
not  for  The  Cause,  and  for  the  puir  young  fellows  that  come 
in  to  me  whiles  to  get  some  book-learning  about  the  gran' 
auld  Roman  times,  when  folks  didna  care  lor  themselves,  but  | 
for  the  nation,  and  a  man  counted  wife  and  bairns  and  money 
as  dross  and  dung,  in  comparison  with  the  Sfreat  Roman  city, 
that  was  the  mither  of  them  a',  and  Avad  last  on,  free  and 
glorious,  after  they  and  their  bairns  were  a'  dead  thegither  ? 
Hoot  man  I  If  I  had  na  The  Cause  to  care  for  and  to  work 
for,  whether  I  ever  see  it  triumphant  on  earth  or  no — I'd 
just  tak  the  cauld-water-cure  off  Waterloo-bridge,  and  mak' 
mysel'  a  case  for  the  Humane  Society." 

"  And  what  is  The  Cause  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Wud  I  tell  ye  ?  We  want  no  ready-made  freens  o'  The 
Cause.  I  dinna  hould  wi'  thae  French  indoctrinating  ped- 
ants, that  took  to  stick  free  opinions  into  a  man  as  ye'd  stick  pins 
into  a  pincushion,  to  fa'  out  again  the  first  shake.  Na — The 
Cause  must  find  a  man,  and  tak  liauld  o'  him,  willy-nilly. 


76   •       ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

and  grow  up  in  him  like  an  inspiration,  till  he  can  see  nocht 
but  in  the  light  o't.  Puir  bairn  I"  he  went  on,  looking  with 
a  half-sad,  half-comic  face  at  me — "  puir  bairn — like  a  young 
bear,  wi'  a'  your  sorrows  before  you  I  This  time  seven  years 
ye'll  ha'  no  need  to  come  speering  and  questioning  what  The 
Cause  is,  and  the  Gran'  Cause,  and  the  Only  Cause  worth 
working  for  on  the  earth  o'  God.  And  noo  gang  your  gate, 
and  mak'  fine  feathers  for  foul  birds.  I'm  gaun  whar  ye'll 
be  ganging  too,  before  long." 

As  I  went  sadly  o\it  of  the  shop,  he  called  me  back. 

"  Stay  a  wee,  bairn  ;  there's  the  Roman  History  for  ye. 
There  ye'll  read  what  The  Cause  is,  and  how  they  that  seek 
their  ain  are  no  worthy  thereof" 

I  took  the  book,  and  found  in  the  legends  of  Brutus,  and 
Codes,  and  Scfevola,  and  the  retreat  to  the  Mons  Sacer,  and 
the  Gladiator's  War,  what  The  Cause  was,  and  forgot  awhile 
in  those  tales  of  antique  heroism  and  patriotic  selfsacrifieo 
my  own  selfish  longings  and  sorrows. 

But,  after  all,  the  very  advice  which  was  meant  to  euro 
nie  of  those  selfish  longings,  only  tended,  by  diverting  me  from 
my  living  outward  idol,  to  turn  my  thoi-ights  more  than  ever 
inward,  and  tempt  them  to  feed  on  their  own  substance.  I 
passed  whole  days  on  the  work-room  floor  in  brooding  silence 
— my  mind  peopled  with  an  incoherent  rabble  of  phantasms 
patched  up  from  every  object  of  which  I  had  ever  read.  I 
could  not  control  my  day-dreams  ;  they  swept  me  away  with 
them  over  sea  and  land,  and  into  the  bowels  of  the  eartli. 
My  soul  escaped  on  every  side  from  my  civilized  dungeon  of 
brick  and  mortar,  into  the  great  free  world  from  which  my 
body  was  debarred.  Now  1  was  the  Corsair  in  the  pride  of 
freedom  on  the  dark  blue  sea.  Now  I  wandered  in  fairy 
caverns  among  the  bones  of  primeval  monsters.  I  fought  at 
the  side  of  Leonidas,  and  the  Maccabee  who  stabbed  the 
Sultan's  elephant,  and  saw  him  crushed  beneath  its  falling 
bulk.  Now  I  was  a  hunter  in  tropic  forests — I  heard  the 
parrots  scream,  and  saw  the  humming-birds  flit  on  from  gor- 
geous flower  to  flower.  Gradually  I  took  a  voluntary  pleas- 
ure in  calling  up  these  images,  and  working  out  their  details 
into  words  with  all  the  accuracy  and  care  for  which  my  small 
knowledge  gave  me  materials.  And  as  the  self  indulgent 
habit  grew  on  me,  I  began  to  live  two  lives — one  mechanical 
and  outward,  one  inward  and  imaginative.  The  thread 
passed  through  my  fingers  without   knowing   't  ;  I  did  my 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOBT.        77 

work  as  a  tnacliine  might  do  it.  The  clingy  stifling  room,  the 
wan  faces  of  my  companion,?,  the  scanty  meals  which  I 
snatched,  I  saw  dimly,  as  in  a  dream.  The  tropics,  and 
Greece,  the  imaginary  battles  which  I  fought,  the  phantoms 
into  whose  mouths  I  put  my  thoughts,  were  real  and  true  to 
me.  They  met  me  when  I  woke — they  floated  along  beside 
me  as  I  walked  to  work — they  acte<l  their  fantastic  dramas 
before  me  through  the  sleepless  hours  of  night.  Gradually 
certain  faces  among  them  became  famiUar — certain  ]X'rson- 
ages  grew  into  coherence,  as  embodiments  of  those  few  types 
of  character  which  had  struck  me  the  most,  and  played  an 
analogous  part  in  every  fresh  fantasia.  Sandy  IMackaye's 
face  figured  incongruously  enough  as  Leonidas,  Brutus,  a 
Pilgrim  Father ;  and  gradually,  in  spite  of  myself,  and  the 
fear  with  which  I  looked  oii  the  recurrence  of  that  dream, 
Lillian's  figure  re-entered  my  fairly-land.  I  saved  her  from 
a  hundred  dangers  ;  I  followed  her  through  dragon-guarded 
caverns  and  the  corridors  of  magic  castles  ;  I  walked  by  her 
side  through  the  forests  of  the  Amazon 

And  now  I  began  to  crave  for  some  means  of  expressing 
these  fancies  to  myself  While  they  were  mere  thoughts, 
parts  of  me,  they  were  unsatisfactory,  however  delicious.  I 
longed  to  put  them  outside  me,  that  I  might  look  at  them 
and  talk  to  them  as  permanent,  independent  things.  First  I 
tried  to  sketch  them  on  the  whitewashed  walls  of  my  garret, 
on  scraps' of  paper  begged  from  Maekaye,  or  picked  up  in  the 
work-room.  But  from  my  ignorance  of  any  rules  of  drawing, 
they  were  utterly  devoid  of  beauty,  and  only  excited  my  dis- 
gust. Besides,  I  had  thoughts  as  well  as  objects  to  express 
— thoughts  strange,  sad,  wild,  about  my  own  feelings,  my 
own  destiny,  and  drawing  could  not  speak  them  for  me. 

Then  I  turned  instinctively  to  poetry :  with  its  rules  I  was 
getting  rapidly  conversant.  The  mere  desire  of  imitation 
urged  me  on,  and  when  I  tried,  the  grace  of  rhyme  and  metre 
covered  a  thousand  defects.  I  tell  my  story,  not  as  I  saw  it, 
then,  but  as  I  see  it  now.  A  long  and  lonely  voj'age,  with 
its  monotonous  days  and  sleepless  nights — its  sickness  and 
heart-loneliness,  has  given  me  opportunities  for  analyzing  my 
past  history  which  were  impossible  then,  amid  the  ceaselef;s 
in-rush  of  new  images,  the  ceaseless  ferment  of  their  re-corn- 
bination,  in  which  my  liic  has  passed  from  sixteen  to  twenty- 
five.  The  poet,  I  suppose,  must  be  a  Seer  as  long  as  he  is  a 
worker,  and  a  seer  only.  He  has  no  time  to  philosophize — to 
"think  about  thinking,'  as  Goethe,  I  have  somewhere  read. 


'8         ALTON  LOCKF:,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Bays  that  he  never  could  do  It  is  too  often  only  in  sickness 
and  prostration  and  sheer  despair,  that  the  fierce  voracity  and 
6\vift  digestion  of  his  soul  can  cease,  and  give  him  time  to 
know  himself  and  God's  dealings  with  him  ;  and  for  that 
reason  it  is  good  for  him,  too,  to  have  been  afflicted. 

I  do  not  write  all  this  to  boast  of  it ;  I  am  ready  to  bear 
sneers  at  my  romance — my  day-dreams — my  unpractical 
habits  of  mind,  for  I  know  that  1  deserve  them.  But  such 
was  the  appointed  growth  of  my  uneducated  mind  ;  no  more 
unhealthy  a  growth,  if  I  am  to  believe  books,  than  that  of 
many  a  carefully  trained  one.  High-born  geniuses,  they  tell 
me,  have  their  idle  visions  as  well  as  wo  working  men  ;  and 
Oxford  has  seen  of  late  years  as  wild  Icarias  conceived  as 
ever  were  fathered  by  a  red  Republic.  For,  indeed,  we  have 
the  same  flesh  and  blood,  the  same  God  to  teach  us,  the  same 
devil  to  mislead  us,  whether  we  choose  to  believe  it  or  not. 
But  there  were  excuses  for  me.  We  Londoners  are  not  ac- 
customed from  our  youth  to  the  poems  of  a  great  democratic 
genius,  as  the  Scotchmen  are  to  their  glorious  Burns.  We 
have  no  chance  of  such  an  early  acquaintance  with  poetic  art 
as  that  which  enabled  John  Bethune,  one  of  the  great  unre- 
presented— the  starving  Scotch  day-laborer,  breaking  stones 
upon  the  parish  roads,  to  write  at  the  age  of  seventeen  such 
words  as  these : 

Hail,  hallow'd  evening  !  sacred  hour  to  me  I 
Thy  clouds  of  gray,  thy  vocal  melody, 
Thy  dreamy  silence  ol't  to  me  have  broiinrht 
A  sweet  exchange  from  toil  to  peaceful  i bought. 
Ye  purple  heavens !  how  often  has  my  eye, 
Wearied  with  its  long  gaze  on  drudgery, 
Look'd  up  and  found  refreshment  in  the  hues 
That  gild  thy  vest  with  coloring  profuse  ! 

0,  evening  gray !  how  oft  have  I  admired 
Thy  airy  tapestry,  whose  radiance  fired 
The  glowing  minstrels  of  the  olden  time, 
Until  their  very  souls  flow'd  forth  in  rhyme. 
And  I  have  listened,  till  my  spirit  grew 
Familiar  with  their  deathless  strains,  and  drew 
From  the  same  source  some  portion  of  the  glow 
Which  fill'd  their  spirits,  when  from  earth  below 
They  scann'd  thy  golden  imagery.     And  I 
Have  consecrated  thee,  bright  evening  sky 
My  fount  of  inspiration  :  and  I  fling 
My  spirit  on  thy  clouds — an  offering 
To  the  great  Deity  of  dying  day, 
Who  hath  transl'ui;cd  o'er  thcc  his  purple  ray. 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  I'OF'.T.  7rJ 

After  all,  our  dreams  do  little  harm  to  the  rich.  Those 
who  consider  Chartism  as  synonymous  M'ith  devil-worship, 
should  bless  and  encourage  them,  for  the  very  reason  for 
which  we  Mcrking  men  ought  to  dread  them  ;  lor,  quickened 
into  prurient  activity  by  the  low,  novel-mongering  press,  they 
help  to  enervate  and  besot  all  but  the  noblest  minds  among 
us.  Here  and  there  a  Thomas  Cooper,  sitting  in  Stafford 
jail,  after  a  youth  spent  in  cobbling  shoes,  vents  his  treasures 
of  classic  and  historic  learning  in  a  "Purgatory  of  Suicides  ;"' 
or  a  Prince  becomes  the  poet  of  the  poor,  no  less  for  having 
fed  his  boyish  fancy  with  "  The  Arabian  Nights"  and  "  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress."  But,  w'.th  the  most  of  us,  sedentary  and 
monotonous  occupations,  as  has  long  been  known,  create  of 
themselves  a  morbidly-meditative  and  fantastic  turn  of  mind. 
And  what  else,  in  Heaven's  name,  ye  fnie  gentlemen — Avhat 
else  can  a  working-man  do  with  his  imagination,  but  dream  ? 
What  else  will  you  let  him  do  with  it,  oh  ye  education- 
j)edants,  who  fancy  that  you  can  teach  the  masses  as  you 
would  drill  soldiers,  every  soul  alike,  though  you  will  not 
bestir  yourselves  to  do  even  that  ?  Are  there  no  differences 
of  rank — God's  rank,  not  man's — among  us  ?  Yon  have 
discovered,  since  your  school-boy  days,  the  fallacy  of  the  old 
nomenclature  which  civilly  classed  us  all  together  as  "  the 
snobs,"  "  the  blackguards ;"  which  even — .=0  strong  is  habit 
— tempted  Burke  himself  to  talk  of  us  as  "  the  swinish  mul- 
titude." You  are  finding  yourselves  wrong  there.  A  few 
more  years'  experience,  not  in  mis-educating  the  poor,  but  in 
watching  the  poor  really  educate  themselves,  may  teach  you 
that  we  are  not  all  by  nature  dolts  and  idiots;  that  there 
are  differences  of  brain  among  us,  just  as  great  as  there  are 
between  you  ;  that  there  are  those  among  us  whose  education 
ought  not  to  end,  and  will  not  end,  with  the  putting  off'  of 
the  parish  cap  and  breeches ;  whom  it  is  cruelty,  as  well  as 
folly,  to  toss  back  into  the  hell  of  mere  manual  drudgery,  as 
soon  as  you  have — if,  indeed,  you  have  been  even  so  bounti- 
ful as  that — excited  in  them  a  new  thirst  of  the  intellect  and 
imagination.  If  you  provide  that  craving  with  no  whole- 
some food,  you  at  least  have  no  right  to  blame  it  if  it  shall 
g-.rge  itself  with  poison. 

Dare  for  once  to  do  a  strange  thing,  and  let  yourself  be 
laughed  at ;  go  to  a  workman's  meeting — a  Chartist  meet- 
ing, if  you  will  ;  and  look  honestly  at  the  faces  and  brows 
of  those  so-called  incendiaries,  whom  your  venal  caricaturists 
have  taught  you  to  believe  a  mixture  of  cur-dog  and  baboon 


80         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

— we,  for  our  part,  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  show  foreheaclft 
against  your  laughing  House  of  Commons — and  then  say, 
Achat  employment  can  those  men  find  in  the  soulless  routine 
of  mechanical  labor  for  the  mass  of  brain  which  they  almost 
universally  possess  ?  They  must  either  dream  or  agitate ; 
perhaps  they  are  now  learning  how  to  do  both  to  some  pur- 
pose. 

But  I  have  found,  by  sad  experience,  that  there  is  little 
use  in  declamation.  I  had  much  better  simply  tell  my  story, 
and  leave  my  readers  to  judge  of  the  facts,  if,  indeed,  they 
will  be  so  far  courteous  as  to  beheve  them. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
LIGHT  IN  A  DARK  PLACE. 

So  I  made  my  first  attempt  at  poetry — need  I  say  that  my 
Bubject  was  the  beautiful  Lillian?  And  need  I  say,  too,  that 
I  was  utterly  disgusted  at  my  attempt  to  express  her  in  words, 
as  I  had  been  at  my  trial  with  the  pencil  ?  It  chanced  also, 
that  after  hammering  out  half-a-dozen  verses,  I  met  with  Mr. 
Tennyson's  poems ;  and  the  uuequaied  sketches  of  women  that 
I  found  there,  while  they  had,  with  the  rest  of  the  boolc,  a 
new  and  abiding  influence  on  my  mind,  were  quite  enough  to 
show  me  my  own  fatal  incompetency  in  that  line.  I  threw 
my  verses  away,  never  to  resume  them.  Perhaps  I  proved 
thereby  the  depth  of  my  aflcction.  Our  mightiest  feelings 
di'e  always  those  which  remain  most  unspoken.  The  most 
intense  lovers  and  the  greatest  poets  have  generally,  I  think, 
written  very  little  personal  love-poetry,  while  tiiey  have 
fhown  in  fictitious  characters  a  knowledge  of  the  passion  too 
painfully  intimate  to  be  spoken  of  in  the  first  person. 

But  to  escape  from  my  own  thoughts,  I  could  not  help 
writing  something ;  and  to  escape  from  my  own  private  sor- 
rows, writing  on  some  matter  with  which  I  had  no  personal 
concern.  And  so,  after  much  casting  about  for  subjects, 
Childe  Harold  and  the  old  missionary  records  contrived  to 
celebrate  a  spiritual  wedding  in  my  brain,  of  which  anomalous 
marriage  came  a  proportionately  anomalous  oflspring. 

My  hero  was  not  to  be  a  pirate,  but  a  pious  sea-rover,  who, 
with  a  crew  of  saints,  or  at  least  uncommonly  fine  fellows, 
who  could  be  very  manly  and  jolly,  and  yet  all  be  good 
Christians,  of  a  somewhat  vague  and  latitudinarian  cast  of 
doctrine  (for  my  own  Avas  becoming  rapidly  so),  set  fortb 
under  the  red-cross  flag  to  colonize  and  convert  one  of  my  old 
paradises,  a  South  Sea  Island. 

I  forget  most  of  the  lines — they  were  probably  great  trash, 
but  I  hugged  them  to  my  bosom  as  a  young  mother  does  hei 
first  child. 

'Tvvas  sunset  in  the  lone  Pacilic  world, 
The  rich  gleams  fading  in  the  western  sky ; 
Within  the  still  Lagoon  the  sails  were  furled, 
The  red-cross  flag  alone  was  flaunting  high. 
Before  them  was  the  low  and  palm-fringed  shore, 
Behind,  the  outer  ocean's  baffled  roar. 


82         ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

After  which  vahant  plung4  iu  medias  res,  came  a  great 
lump  of  description,  after  the  manner  of  youtlis — of  the 
island,  and  the  white  houses,  and  the  banana  groves,  and 
•ibove  all,  the  single  volcano  towering  over  the  whole,  which 

Shaking  a  sinful  isle  with  thundering  shocks, 
Reproved  the  worshipers  of  stones  and  stocks. 

Then  how  a  line  of  foam  appears  on  the  Lagoon,  which  is 
supposed  at  first  to  be  a  shoal  offish,  but  turns  out  to  be  a  troop 
of  naked  island  beauties,  swimming  out  to  the  ship.  The 
decent  missionaries  were  certainly  guiltless  of  putting  it  into 
my  head,  whether  they  ever  saw  it  or  not — a  great  many 
things  happening  in  the  South  Seas  of  which  they  find  it  con- 
venient to  say  nothing.  I  think  I  picked  it  up  irom  Wallis, 
or  Cook,  or  some  other  plain-spoken  voyager. 

The  crew  gaze  in  pardonable  admiration,  but  the  hero, 
in  a  long  speech,  reproves  them  for  their  light-mindedness, 
reminds  them  of  their  sacred  mission,  and  informs  them  that, 

The  soldiers  of  the  cross  should  turn  their  eyes 
From  carnal  lusts  and  heathen  vanities ; 

beyond  which  indisputable  assertion  I  never  got ;  for  this 
being  about  the  fiftieth  stanza,  I  stopped  to  take  breath  a 
little ;  and  reading  and  re-reading,  patching  and  touching 
continually,  grew  so  accustomed  to  my  bantling's  face,  that, 
like  a  mother,  I  could  not  tell  whether  it  was  handsome  or 
hideous,  sense  or  nonsense.  I  have  since  found  out  that  the 
true  plan,  for  myself  at  least,  is  to  write  oft'  as  much  as 
possible  at  a  time,  and  then  lay  it  by  and  forget  it  for  weeks 
— if  I  can,  for  months.  After  that,  on  returning  to  it,  the 
mind  regards  it  as  something  altogether  strange  and  new,  and 
can,  or  rather  ought  to  judge  of  it  as  it  would  of  the  work  ol 
another  pen. 

But  really,  between  conceit  and  disgust,  fancying  myself 
one  day  a  great  new  poet,  and  the  next  a  mere  twaddler,  I  got 
so  puzzled  and  anxious,  that  I  determined  to  pluck  up  courage, 
go  to  Mackaye,  and  ask  him  to  solve  the  problem  for  me. 

"  Hech,  sirs,  poetry  I  I've  been  expecting  it.  I  suppose  it's 
the  appointed  gate  o'  a  workman's  inteUoctual  life — that  same 
lust  o'  versification.     Aweel,  aweel — let's  hear." 

Blushing  and  trembhng,  I  read  my  verses  aloud  in  as  re- 
Bonant  and  magniloquent  a  voice  as  I  could  command.  I 
thought  Mackaye's  upper  lip  would  never  stop  lengthening, 
or  his  lower  lip  protruding.     He  chuckled  intensely  at  the 


ALTON  LOCXE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        83 

unfortunate  rhyme  between  "shocks"  and  "stocks."  Indeed 
it  kept  him  in  chuckhng  matter  for  a  whole  month  afterward  ; 
but  when  I  liad  got  to  the  shoal  of  naked  girls,  he  could  bear 
no  more,  and  burst  out — 

"  What  the  dcevil !  is  there  no  harlotry  and  idolatry  here 
in  England,  that  ye  maun  gang  specring  after  it  in  the  Can- 
nibal Islands?  Are  ye  gaun  to  be  like  thae  puir  aristocrat 
bod  es,  that  wad  suner  hear  an  Italian  dog  howl,  than  an 
En^'lish  nightingale  sing,  and  winna  hearken  to  Mr.  John 
Thomas  till  he  calls  himself  Giovanni  Thomasino  ;  or  do  ye 
tak  yoursel'  for  a  singing-bird,  to  go  all  your  days  tweedle- 
dumdeeiug  out  into  the  lift,  just  for  the  lust  o'  hearing  your 
ain  clan  clatter  ?  Will  ye  be  a  man  or  a  lintie  ?  Coral 
Islands  1  Pacific  ?  What  do  ye  ken  about  Pacifies  ?  Are  ye 
a  cockney  or  a  Cannibal  Islander  ?  Dinna  stand  there,  ye 
gowk,  as  fusionless  as  a  docken,  but  tell  me  that.  Where  do 
ye  live  V 

"What  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?"  asked  I,  Avith  a 
doleful  and  disappointed  visage. 

"  Mean — why,  if  God  had  meant  ye  to  write  about  Pa- 
cifies, He'd  ha'  put  ye  there — and  because  He  means  ye  to 
write  aboot  London  town  He's  put  ye  there — and  gie'n  ye 
an  unco  sharp  taste  o'  the  ways  o't ;  and  I'll  gie  ye  anither. 
Come  along  wi'  me." 

And  he  seized  me  by  the  arm,  and  hardly  giving  me  time 
to  put  on  my  hat,  marched  me  out  into  the  streets,  and  away 
through  Clare  Market  to  St.  Giles's. 

It  was  a  foul,  chilly,  foggy  Saturday  night.  From  the 
butchers'  and  green-grocers'  shops  the  gas-lights  flared  and 
flickered,  wild  and  ghastly,  over  haggard  groups  of  slipshod 
dirty  women,  bargaining  for  scraps  of  stale  meat  and  frostbit- 
ten vegetables,  wrangling  about  short  weight  and  bad  quality. 
Fish-stalls  and  fruit-stalls  lined  the  edge  of  the  greasy  pave- 
ment, sending  up  odors  as  foul  as  the  language  of  sellers  and 
buj'ers.  Blood  and  sewer-water  crawled  Irom  under  doors  and 
out  of  spouts,  and  reeked  down  the  gutters  among  offal,  ani- 
mal and  vegetable,  in  every  stage  of  putrefaction.  Foul  va- 
pors rose  from  cowsheds  and  slaughter-houses,  and  the  door 
•A'ays  of  undrained  alleys,  where  the  inhabitants  carried  tht 
filth  out  on  their  shoes  (rom  the  back-yard  into  the  court,  and 
from  the  court  up  into  the  main  street;  while  above,  hanging 
like  clifls  over  the  streets — those  narrow,  brawling  torrents  of 
filth,  and  poverty,  and  sin — the  houses  with  their  teeming 
load  if  life  were  piled  up  into  the  dingy,  choking  night.      A 


81        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

ghastly,  deafening,  sickening  sight  it  was.  Go,  scented  Bel- 
gravian !  and  see  what  London  is  I  and  then  go  to  the  library 
which  God  has  given  thee — one  often  fears  in  vain — and  see 
what  science  says  this  London  might  be  I 

"Ay,"  he  muttered  to  himself  as  he  strode  along,  "sing 
awa' ;  get  yoursel'  wi'  child  wi'  pretty  fancies  and  gran'  words, 
like  the  rest  of  the  poets,  and  gang  to  hell  for  it." 

"To  hell,  Mr.  Mackaye?" 

"  Ay,  to  a  verra  real  hell,  Alton  Locke,  laddie — a  warse 
ane  than  any  fiends'  kitchen  or  subterranean  Smithfield  that 
ye'U  hear  o'  in  the  pulpits — the  hell  on  earth  o'  being  a  flunky, 
and  a  humbug,  and  a  useless  peacock,  wasting  God's  gifts  on 
your  ain  lusts  and  pleasures — and  kenning  it — and  not  being 
able  to  get  oot  o'  it,  for  the  chains  o'  vanity  and  self-indulgence. 
I've  warned  ye.     Now  look  there — " 

lie  stopped  suddenly  before  the  entrance  of  a  miserable 
alley — 

"  Look  !  there's  not  a  soul  down  that  yard  but's  either  beg- 
gar, drunkard,  thief,  or  warse.  Write  aboot  that !  Say  how 
ye  saw  the  mouth  o'  hell,  and  the  tM^a  pillars  thereof  at  the 
entry — the  pawn-broker's  shop  o'  one  side  and  the  gin  palace  at 
the  other — twa  monstrous  deevils,  eating  up  men,  and  women, 
and  bairns,  body  and  soul.  Look  at  the  jaws  o'  the  monsters, 
how  they  open  and  open,  and  swallow  in  anither  victim  and 
anither.     Write  aboot  that." 

"  What  jaws,  Mr.  Mackaye  I" 

■'  Thae  faulding-doors  o'  the  gin-shop,  goose.  Are  na  they 
a  mair  damnable  man-devouring  idol  than  ony  red-hot  statue 
o'  Moloch,  or  wicked  Gogmagog,  wherein  the  auld  Britons 
burnt  their  prisoners  1  Look  at  thae  barefooted,  bare-backed 
hizzies,  with  their  arms  round  the  men's  necks,  and  their 
mouth's  full  o'  vitriol  and  beastly  words!  Look  at  that  Irish- 
woman pouring  the  gin  down  the  babbie's  throat  I  Look  at 
that  rafio'  a  boy  gaun  out  o'  the  pawnshop,  where  he's  been 
pledging  the  handkerchief  he  stole  the  morning,  into  the  gin- 
shop,  to  buy  beer  poisoned  wi'  grains  o'  paradise,  and  cocculus 
indicus,  and  saut,  and  a'  damnable,  maddening,  thirst-breed- 
ing, lust-breeding  drugs !  Look  at  that  girl  that  went  in  wi' 
a  shawl  on  her  back,  and  came  out  wi'out  ane  I  Drunkards 
frae  the  breast !  harlots  frae  the  cradle  I  damned  before  they're 
born  !  John  Calvin  had  an  inkling  o'  the  truth  there,  I'm 
a'most  driven  to  think,  wi'  his  reprobation  deevil's  doctrines  I" 

"  Well — but — Mr.  Mackaye,  I  know  nothing  about  these 
poor  creatures." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         85 

"  Th(n  ye  ought.  What  do  ye  keu  aboot  the  Pacific  ? 
Which  is  maist  to  your  business  ?  Tiiat  bare-backed  hizzies 
tliat  play  the  harlot  o'  the  other  side  o'  the  warld,  or  these — 
these  thousands  o'  barebacked  hizzies  that  play  the  harlot  o' 
your  ain  side — made  out  o'  your  ;uu  flesh  and  bludel  You  a 
poet  I  True  poetry,  like  true  charity,  my  laddie,  begins  at 
hame.  It'ye'Jl  be  a  poet  at  a',  ye  maun  be  a  cockney  poet ; 
and  while  the  cockneys  be  what  they  be,  ye  maun  write,  like 
Jeremiah  of  old,  o'  lamentation,  and  mourning,  and  woe,  for 
the  sins  o'  your  people.  Gin  ye  want  to  learn  the  spirit  o'  a 
people's  poet,  down  wi'  your  Bible  and  read  the  auld  Hebrew 
prophets  ;  gin  ye  wad  learn  the  style,  read  your  Burns  frae  morn- 
ing till  night ;  and  gin  ye'd  learn  the  matter,  just  gang  after 
your  nose,  and  keep  your  eyes  open,  and  ye'll  no  miss  it." 

"But  all  this  is  so — so  unpoetical." 

"  Hech  I  Is  there  no  the  heeven  above  them  there,  and 
the  hell  beneath  them  ?  And  God  frowning  and  the  deevil 
grinning  ?  No  poetry  there  I  Is  no  the  vei'ra  idea  of  the 
classic  tragedy  defined  to  be,  man  conquered  by  circum- 
stance? Canna  ye  see  it  there]  And  the  verra  idea  of 
the  modern  tragedy,  man  conquering  circumstance  ?  and  I'll 
show  ye  that,  too — in  mony  a  garret  where  no  eye  but  the 
gude  God's  enters,  to  see  the  patience,  and  the  fortitude,  and 
the  self-sacrifice,  and  the  luve  stronger  than  death,  that's  shin- 
ing in  thae  dark  places  o'  the  earth.      Come  wi'  me,  and  .see." 

We  went  on  through  a  back  street  or  two,  and  then  into  a 
huge,  miserable  house,  which,  a  hundred  years  ago,  perhaps, 
had  witnessed  the  luxury,  and  rung  to  the  laughter  of  some 
one  great  fashionable  family  alone  there  in  their  glory.  Now 
every  room  of  it  held  its  family,  or  its  group  of  families — a 
phalanstery  of  all  the  fiends  ;  its  grand  staircase,  with  the 
carved  ballustrades  rotting  ^nd  crumbling  away  piecemeal, 
converted  into  a  common  sewer  for  all  its  inmates.  Up  stair 
after  stair  we  went,  while  wails  of  children,  and  curses  of  men, 
Bteamed  out  upon  the  hot  stifling  rush  of  air  from  every  door 
way,  till,  at  the  topmost  story,  we  knocked  at  a  garret  door. 
We  entered.  Bare  it  was  of  furniture,  comfortless,  and 
freezing  cold;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  plaster  dropping 
from  the  roof,  and  the  broken  windows  patched  with  rags  and 
paper,  there  was  a  scrupulous  neatness  about  the  whole,  which 
contrasted  strangely  with  the  filth  and  slovenliness  outside. 
There  was  no  bed  in  the  room — no  table.  On  a  broken 
chair  by  the  chimney  sat  a  miserable  old  woman,  fancying 
that  she  was  warming  her  hands  over  embers  which  had  lonj{ 


SJ  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

been  cold,  shaking  her  head,  and  muttering  to  herself  with 
palsit'd  lips  about  the  guardians  and  the  workhouse  ;  while 
upon  a  i'ew  rags  on  the  floor  lay  a  girl,  ugly,  small-pox-mark- 
ed, hollow-eyed,  emaciated,  her  only  bed-clothes  the  skirt  of  a 
large  handsome  new  riding  habit,  at  which  two  other  girls, 
wan  and  tawdry,  were  stitching  busily,  as  they  sat  right  and 
left  of  hei  on  the  floor.  The  old  woman  took  no  notice  of  us 
as  we  entered ;  but  one  of  the  girls  looked  up,  and  with  a 
pleased  gesture  of  recognition,  put  her  finger  up  to  her  lips, 
and  whispered,  "  Ellen's  asleep." 

"  I'm  not  asleep,  dears,"  answered  a  faint,  unearthly  voice  ; 
"  I  was  only  praying.     Is  that  Mr.  Mackaye  ?" 

"Ay,  my  lasses;  but  ha'  ye  gotten  na  fire  the  nicht  ?" 

"No,"  said  one  of  them,  bitterly,  "  we've  earned  no  fire  to- 
night, by  fair  trade,  or  foul  either." 

The  sick  girl  tried  to  raise  herself  up  and  speak,  but  was 
stopped  by  a  frightful  fit  of  coughing  and  expectoration,  as 
painful,  apparently,  to  the  suflerer  as  it  was,  I  confess,  dis- 
gusting even  to  me. 

I  saw  Mackaye  slip  something  into  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
girls,  and  whisper,  "A  half-hundred  of  coals  ;"  to  Avhich  she 
replied  with  an  eager  look  of  gratitude  that  I  never  can  for- 
get, and  hurried  out.  Then  the  sufi^erer,  as  if  taking  advantage 
of  her  absence,  began  to  speak  quickly  and  eagerly. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Mackaye — dear,  kind  Mr.  Mackaye — do  speak 
to  her  ;  and  do  speak  to  poor  Lizzy  here  I  I'm  not  afraid  to 
say  it  before  her,  because  she's  more  gentle  like,  and  hasn't 
learnt  to  say  bad  words  yet — but  do  speak  to  them,  and  tell 
them  not  to  go  the  bad  way,  like  all  the  rest.  Tell  them 
it'll  never  prosper.  I  know  it  is  want  that  drives  them  to  it, 
as  it  drives  all  of  us — but  tell  them  it's  best  to  starve  and  die 
honest  girls,  than  to  go  about  with  the  shame  and  the  curse 
of  God  on  their  hearts,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  this  poor, 
miserable,  vile  body  together  a  few  short  years  more  in  this 
world  o'  sorrow.     Do  tell  them,  Mr.  Mackaye." 

"  I'm  thinking,"  said  he,  with  the  tears  running  down  his 
old,  withered  face,  "  ye'll  mak  a  better  preacher  at  that  text 
than  I  shall,  Ellen." 

"Oh,  no,  no  ;  who  am  I,  to  speak  to  ihciu  .' — it's  no  merit 
o'  mine,  Mr.  Mackaye,  that  the  Lord's  kept  me  pure  through 
it  all.  I  should  have  been  just  as  bad  as  any  of  them,  if  the 
Lord  had  not  kept  me  out  of  temptation  in  His  great  mercy, 
by  making  me  the  poor,  ill-favored  creature  I  am.  From 
that  time  I  was  br.rnt  when  I   was  a  child,  and   had  the 


ALTON  LOCKE,  lAILOR  AND  POET.        87 

small-pox  afterward,  oli  I  how  sinful  I  was,  and  repined  an  1 
rebelled  against  the  Lord  1  And  now  I  see  it  was  all  His 
blessed  mercy  to  keep  me  out  of  evil,  pure  and  unspotted  li>r 
my  dear  Jesus,  when  he  comes  to  take  me  to  himself.  1  saw 
Him  last  night,  Mr.  Mackaye,  as  plain  as  I  see  you  now,  all 
in  a  flame  of  beautiful  white  fire,  smiling  at  me  so  sweetly  ; 
and  He  showed  mc  the  wounds  in  His  hands  and  His  feet, 
and  He  said,  "  Ellen,  my  own  child,  those  that  sufli.*r  wUli 
me  here,  they  shall  be  glorified  with  me  hereafter,  for  i'm 
coming  very  soon  to  take  you  home." 

:^andy  shook  his  head  at  all  this  with  a  strange  expression 
efface,  as  if  he  sympathized  and  yet  disagreed,  respected  and 
yet  smiled  at  the  shape  which  her  religious  ideas  had  as 
sumed  ;  and  I  remarked  in  the  mean  time  that  the  poor  girl'i 
neck  and  arm  were  all  scarred  and  distorted,  apparently  from 
the  effects  of  a  burn. 

"  Ah,"  said  Sandy,  at  length,  "  I  tauld  ye  ye  Avere  the 
better  preacher  of  the  tAvo  ;  ye've  mair  comfort  to  gie  Sandy 
than  he  has  to  gie  the  like  o'  ye.  But  how  is  the  Avound  in 
your  back  the  day  ?" 

Oh,  it  was  wonderfully  better  !  the  doctor  had  come  and 
given  her  such  blessed  ease  with  a  great  thick  leather  he  had 
put  under  it,  and  then  she  did  not  feel  the  boards  through  so 
much.  "  But  oh,  Mr.  Mackaye,  I'm  so  afraid  it  will  make 
me  live  longer  to  keep  me  away  nom  my  dear  Saviour.  And 
there's  one  thing,  too,  that's  breaiiing  my  heart,  and  makes 
me  long  to  die  this  very  minute,  even  if  I  didn't  go  to  Heaven 
at  all,  Mr.  Mackaye."  (And  she  burst  out  crying,  and  be- 
tween her  sobs  it  came  out,  as  well  as  I  could  gather,  that 
her  notion  was,  that  her  illness  was  the  cause  of  keeping  the 
gills  in  "  the  bad  u-ay,"  as  she  called  it.)  "  For  Lizzy  here,  I 
did  hope  that  she  had  repented  of  it  after  all  my  talking  to  her ; 
but  since  I've  been  so  bad,  and  the  girls  have  had  to  keep  me 
most  o'  the  time,  she's  gone  out  of  nights  just  as  bad  as  ever." 

Lizzy  had  hid  her  face  in  her  hands  the  greater  part  of  this 
speech.     Now  she  looked  up  passionately,  almost  fiercely — 

"  Repent — I  have  repented — 1  repent  of  it  every  hour — I 
hate  myself,  and  hate  all  the  world  because  of  it ;  but  I  must 
— I  must  ;  I  can  not  see  her  starve,  and  I  can  not  starve 
myself  When  she  first  fell  sick  she  kept  on  as  long  as  she 
could,  doing  what  she  could,  and  then  between  us  we  only 
earned  three  shillings  a  week,  and  there  was  ever  so  much  to 
take  off  for  fire,  and  twopence  for  thread,  and  fivepence  for 
candles;  and  then  we  were   always   getting   fined,  because 


53         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOLT. 

they  never  gave  us  out  the  work  till  too  late  on  purpose,  and 
then  they  lowered  prices  again  ;  and  now  Ellen  can't  work 
at  all,  and  there's  four  of  us  with  the  old  lady,  to  keep  off 
two's  work  that  couldn't  keep  themselves  alone." 

"  Doesn't  the  parish  allow  the  old  lady  any  thing  ]"  I  ven- 
tured to  ask. 

"  They  used  to  allow  half-a-crown  for  a  bit  ;  and  the  doc- 
tor ordered  Ellen  things  from  the  parish,  but  it  isn't  half  of 
'em  she  ever  got  ;  and  when  the  meat  came,  it  was  half 
times  not  fit  to  eat,  and  when  it  was  her  stomach  turned 
against  it.  If  she  was  a  lady  she'd  be  cockered  up  with  all 
sorts  of  soups  and  jellies,  and  nice  things,  just  the  minute  she 
limcied  'em,  and  lie  on  a  water  bed  instead  of  the  bare  floor — 
and  so  she  ought ;  but  where's  the  parish  '11  do  that  1  And 
the  hospital  wouldn't  take  her  in  because  she  was  incurable  ; 
and,  besides,  the  old  'un  wouldn't  let  her  go — nor  into  the 
union  neither.  When  she's  in  a  good-humor  like,  she'll  sit 
by  her  by  the  hour,  holding  her  hand  and  kissing  of  it,  and 
nursing  of  it,  for  all  the  world  like  a  doll.  But  she  wont 
hear  of  the  workhouse ;  so  now,  these  last  three  weeks,  they 
takes  off  all  her  pay,  because  they  says  she  must  go  into  the 
house,  and  not  kill  her  daughter  by  keeping  her  out — as  if 
they  warn't  a  killing  her  themselves." 

"  No  workhouse — no  workhouse  I"  said  the  old  woman, 
turning  round  suddenly,  in  a  clear,  lofty  voice.  "  No  work- 
house, sir,  for  an  officer's  daughter." 

And  she  relapsed  into  her  stupor. 

At  that  moment  the  other  girl  entered  with  the  coals — 
but  without  staying  to  light  the  fire,  ran  up  to  Ellen  with 
some  trumpery  dainty  she  had  bought,  and  tried  to  persuade 
her  to  eat  it. 

"We  have  been  telling  Mr.  Mackaye  every  thing,"  said 
poor  Lizzy. 

"  A  pleasant  story,  isn't  it  ?  Oh  !  if  that  fine  lady,  as 
we're  making  that  riding-habit  for,  would  just  spare  only 
half  the  money  that  goes  in  dressing  her  up  to  ride  in  the 
park,  to  send  us  out  to  the  colonies,  wouldn't  I  be  an  honest 
girl  there  ?  Maybe  an  honest  man's  wife  !  Oh  I  my  God  I 
wouldn't  I  slave  my  fingers  to  the  bone  for  him  !  Wouldn't 
1  mend  my  life  then  I  I  couldn't  help  it — it  would  be  like 
getting  into  heaven  out  of  hell.  But  now — we  must — we 
must — I  tell  you.  I  shall  go  mad  soon,  I  think,  or  take  tc 
drink.  When  I  passed  the  gin-shop  down  there  just  now,  I 
had  to  run  lilce  mad  for  fiiar  I  should  go  in — and  if  I  once 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  99 

took  to  that — Now  then  to  work  again.  INIake  up  the  fire, 
Mrs. ,  please  do." 

And  she  sat  down  and  began  stitching  frantically  at  the 
riding-habit,  from  which  the  other  girl  had  hardly  lifted  her 
hands  or  eyes  for  a  moment  during  our  visit. 

We  made  a  motion  as  if  to  go. 

"God  bless  you,"  said  Ellen  ;  "  come  again  soon,  dear  Mr. 
Mackaye." 

"  Good-by,"  said  the  elder  girl!  "and  good  night  to  you. 
Night  and  day's  all  the  same  here — we  must  have  this  home 
by  seven  o'clock  to-morrow  morning.  My  lady's  going  to 
ride  early  they  say,  whoever  she  may  be,  and  we  must  just 
sit  up  all  night.  It's  often  we  haven't  had  our  clothes  off  for 
a  week  together,  from  four  in  the  morning  till  two  the  next 
morning  sometimes — stitch,  stitch,  stitch.  Somebody's  wrote 
a  song  about  that — I'll  learn  to  sing  it — it  '11  sound  fitting- 
like, up  here." 

"  Better  sing  hymns,"  said  Ellen. 

"  Hymns  for ?"  answered  the  other,  and  then  burst 

out  into  that  peculiar  Avild,  ringing,  fiendish  laugh — has  my 
reader  never  heard  it  ? 

I  pulled  out  the  two  or  three  shillings  which  I  possessed,  and 
tried  to  make  the  girls  take  them,  for  the  sake  of  poor  Ellen. 

"  No  ;  you're  a  working-man,  and  we  won't  feed  on  you — 
you'll  want  it  some  day — all  the  trade's  going  the  same  way 
as  we,  as  fast  as  ever  it  can  I" 

Sandy  and  I  went  down  the  stairs. 

"  Poetic  element  ?  Yon  lassie,  rejoicing  in  her  disfigure- 
ment and  not  her  beauty,  like  the  nuns  of  Peterborough  in 
auld  time — is  their  no  poetry  there  ?  That  puir  lassie,  dying 
on  the  bare  boards  and  seeing  her  Saviour  in  her  dreams,  is 
there  na  poetry  there,  callaiit  ?  That  auld  body  owre  the 
hre,  wi'  her  '  an  oflicer's  dochter,'  is  there  na  poetry  there  ? 
That  ither,  prostituting  hersel  to  buy  food  for  her  freen — is 
there  na  poetry  there  ? — tragedy, 

With  hues  as  when  some  mighty  painter  dips 
His  pea  in  dyes  of  earthquake  and  eclipse. 

Ay,  Shelley's  gran' ;  always  gran' ;  but  Fact  is  grander — • 
God  and  Satan  are  grander.  All  around  ye,  in  every  gin- 
shop  and  costermonger's  cellar, 'are  God  and  Satan  at  death 
grips ;  every  garret  is  a  haill  Paradise  Lost  or  Paradise 
Regained:  and  will  ye  tliink  it  beneath  ye  to  be  the  'Peo- 
ple's Poet  ?'  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

POETRY  AND  POETS. 

In  the  histoiy  of  individuals,  as  well  as  in  that  of  naticna, 
there  is  often  a  period  of  sudden  blossoming — a  short  luxuriant 
summer,  not  Avithout  its  tornados  and  thunder  glooms,  in 
which  all  the  buried  seeds  of  past  observation  leap  forth 
together  into  life,  and  form,  and  beauty.  And  such  with 
/  me  were  the  two  j'ears  that  followed.  I  thought — I  talked 
/  poetry  to  myself  all  day  long.  I  wrote  nightly  on  my  return 
from  work.  I  am  astonished,  on  looking  back,  at  the  variety 
and  quantity  of  my  productions  during  that  short  time.  My 
/  subjects  were  intentionally  and  professedly  cockney  ones.  I 
had  taken  Mackaye  at  his  word.  I  had  made  up  my  mind, 
that  if  I  had  any  poetic  power,  I  must  do  my  duty  therewith 
in  that  station  of  life  to  which  it  had  pleased  God  to  call  me, 
and  look  at  every  thing  simply  and  faithfully  as  a  London 
artisan.  To  this,  I  suppose,  is  to  be  attributed  the  little 
geniality  and  originality  for  which  the  public  have  kindly 
praised  my  verses  ;  a  geniality  which  sprung,  not  from  the 
atmosphere  whence  I  drew,  but  from  the  honesty  and  single- 
mindeduess  with  which,  I  hope,  1  labored.  Not  from  the 
atmosphere,  indeed — that  was  ungenial  enough ;  crime  and 
poverty,  all-devouring  competition,  and  hopeless  struggles 
against  Mammon  and  Moloch,  amid  the  roar  of  wheels,  the 
ceaseless  stream  of  pale,  hard  faces,  intent  on  gain,  or  brood- 
ing over  woe  ;  amid  endless  prison-walls  of  brick,  beneath  a 
lurid,  crushing  sky  of  smoke  and  mist.  It  was  a  dark,  noisy, 
thunderous  element,  that  London  life  ;  a  troubled  sea  that 
can  not  rest,  casting  up  mire  and  dirt  ;  resonant  of  the  clank- 
ing of  chains,  the  grinding  of  remorseless  machinery,  the  wail 
of  lost  spirits  from  th^  pit.  And  it  did  its  work  upon  me  ;  it 
gave  a  gloomy  coloring,  a  glare  as  of  some  Dantean  "  Inferno," 
to  all  my  utterances.  It  did  not  excite  me,  or  make  me 
fierce — I  was  too  much  inured  to  it — but  it  crushed  and  sad- 
dened me  ;  it  deepened  in  me  that  peculiar  melancholy  of 
intellectual  youth,  which  Mr.  Carlyle  has  christened  forever 
3y  one  of  his  immortal  nicknames,  "  Werterism  ;"  I  battened 
on  my  own  melancholy.  I  believed,  I  love  to  believe,  that 
every  face  I  passed  bore  the  traces  of  discontent  a."*  deep  aa 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  91 

was  my  own — and  was  I  so  far  wrong  ]  Was  I  so  fur  wronjr 
either  in  the  gloomy  tone  of  my  own  poetry  ?  Should  not  a 
London  poet's  work  just  now  be  to  cry,  like  the  Jew  of  old, 
about  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  "  Woe,  woe  to  this  city  !"  Is 
this  a  time  to  listen  to  the  voices  of  singing  men  and  sinking 
women  ?  or  to  cry,  "  Oh  I  that  my  head  were  a  fountain  of 
tears,  that  I  might  weep  for  the  sins  of  my  people  ?"  Is  it 
not  noteworthy,  also,  that  it  is  in  this  vein  that  the  London 
poets  have  always  been  the  greatest  ?  Which  of  poor  Hood's 
lyrics  have  an  equal  chance  of  immortality  with  "  The  Song 
of  the  Shirt"  and  "  The  Bridge  of  Sighs,"  rising,  as  they  do, 
right  out  of  the  depths  of  that  Inferno,  sublime  from  their 
very  simplicity  ?  Which  of  Ciiarles  Mackay's  lyrics  can 
compare  lor  a  moment  with  t1ie  Eschylean  grandeur,  the  ter- 
rible rhythmic  lilt  of  his  "  Cholera  Chaunt," 

Dense  on  the  stream  tiie  vapors  lay, 

Thick  as  wool  on  the  cold  highway  ; 

Spungy  and  dim  each  lonely  lamp, 

Shone  o'er  the  streets  so  dull  and  damp; 

The  moonbeams  could  not  pierce  the  cloud 

That  swathed  the  cit}'  like  a  shroud  ; 

There  stood  three  shapes  on  the  bridge  alone, 

Three  figures  by  the  coping-stone  • 

Gaunt  and  tall  and  undefined, 

Spectres  built  of  mist  and  wind. 

*  *  *  * 

I  see  his  foot-marks  east  and  west — 

I  hear  his  tread  in  the  silence  fall — 

He  shall  not  sleep,  he  shall  not  rest — 

He  comes  to  aid  us  one  and  all. 

Were  men  as  wise  as  men  might  be, 

They  would  not  work  for  you,  for  me, 

For  him  that  cometh  over  the  sea; 

But  they  will  nut  hear  the  warning  voice  : 

The  Cholera  comes — Rejoice  !  rejoice  ! 

He  shall  be  lord  of  the  swarming  town  ! 

And  mow  them  down,  and  mow  them  down  ! 

*  *  *  * 

Not  that  I  neglected,  on  the  other  hand,  every  means  of  ex« 
tending  the  wanderings  of  my  spirit  into  sunnier  and  more 
verdant  pathways.  If  I  had  to  tell  the  gay  ones  above  of 
the  gloom  around  me,  I  had  also  to  go  forth  into  the  sunshine 
to  bring  home  if  it  were  but  a  wild-flower  garland  to  those 
that  sit  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death.  That  was  all 
that  I  could  oiler  them.  The  reader  shall  judge,  when  he 
has  read  this  book  throughout,  whether  I  did  not  at  last  find 
for  them  something  tetter  than  even  all  the  beauties  of  nature 


92         ALTON  LOCKK,  TAfLOR  AND  POET. 

But  it  M'as  on  canvas,  and  not  among  realities,  that  I  had 
to  choose  ray  garlands  ;  and  therefore  the  picture  galleries 
became  more  than  ever  my  favorite — haunt,  I  was  going  to 
gay ;  but,  alas  !  it  was  not  six  times  a  year  that  I  got  access 
to  them.  Still,  when  once  every  May  I  found  myself,  by 
dint  of  a  hard-saved  shilling,  actually  within  the  walls  of  that 
to  me  enchanted  palace,  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition — 
Oh,  ye  rich  !  who  gaze  round  you  at  will  upon  your  prints  and 
pictures,  if  hunger  is,  as  they  say,  a  better  sauce  than  any 
Ude  invents,  and  fasting  itself  may  become  the  handmaid  of 
luxury,  you  should  spend,  as  I  did  perforce,  weeks  and  months 
shut  out  from  every  glimpse  of  Nature,  if  you  would  taste 
her  beauties,  even  on  canvas,  with  perfect  relish  and  childish 
self  abandonment.  How  I  loved  and  blest  those  painters  I 
how  I  thanked  Creswick  for  every  transparent,  shade-check- 
ered pool ;  Fielding,  for  every  rain-clad  down  ;  Cooper,  for 
every  knot  of  quiet  cattle  beneath  the  cool,  gray  willows; 
Stanfield,  for  every  snowy  peak,  and  sheet  of  foam-fringed 
sapphire — each  and  every  one  of  them  a  leaf  out  of  the  magic 
book  which  else  was  ever  closed  to  me.  Again,  I  say,  how  I 
loved  and  blest  those  painters  I  On  the  other  hand,  I  was 
not  neglecting  to  read  as  well  as  to  write  poetry ;  and,  to 
speak  first  of  the  highest,  I  know  no  book,  always  excepting 
Milton,  which  at  once  so  quickened  and  exalted  my  poetical 
view  of  man  and  his  history,  as  that  great  prose  poem,  the 
single  epic  of  modern  days,  Thomas  Carlyle's  "  French  Rev- 
olution." Of  the  general  effect  which  his  works  had  on  me, 
I  shall  say  nothing  :  it  was  the  same  as  they  have  had,  thank 
God,  on  thousands  of  my  class  and  of  every  other.  But  that 
book  above  all  first  recalled  me  to  the  overwhelming  and  yet 
ennobling  knowledge  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  Duty  ; 
first  taught  me  to  see  in  history  not  the  mere  farce-tragedy  of 
man's  crimes  and  follies,  but  the  dealings  of  a  righteous  Ruler 
of  the  universe,  Aj'hose  ways  are  in  the  great  deep,  and  whom 
the  sins  and  errors,  as  well  as  the  virtues  and  discoveries  o( 
man,  must  obey  and  justify. 

Then,  in  a  happy  day,  I  fell  on  Alfred  Tennyson's  poetry, 
and  found  there,  astonislied  and  delighted,  the  embodiment  of 
thoughts  about  the  earth  around  me  which  I  had  concealed, 
because  I  fancied  them  peculiar  to  myself.  Why  is  it  that 
the  latest  poet  has  generally  the  greatest  influence  over  the 
minds  of  the  young  ?  Surely  not  for  the  mere  charm  of  nov- 
elty ?  The  reason  is,  that  he,  living  amid  the  same  hopes, 
^lie  same  temptationr  *he  same  sphere  of  observation  as  they, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.         93 

gives  utterance  and  outward  form  to  the  very  questions  which, 
vague  and  wordless,  have  been  exercising-  their  hearts.  Andy 
what  endeared  Tennyson  especially  to  me,  the  working-man. 
Avas,  as  I  afterward  discovered,  the  altogether  democratic  ten-  i 
dency  of  his  poems.  True,  all  great  poets  are  by  their  office  j 
democrats  ;  seers  of  man  only  as  man  ;  singers  of  the  joys,  the 
sorrows,  the  aspirations  common  to  all  humanity  ;  but  in  Al- 
fred Tennyson  there  is  an  element  especially  democratic,  truly 
leveling;  not  his  political  opinions,  about  which  1  know  noth- 
ing, and  care  less,  but  his  handling  of  the  trivial,  every-dayj 
sights  and  sounds  of  nature.  Brought  up,  as  1  understand,  in  a 
part  of  England  Avhich  possesses  not  much  of  the  picturesque, 
and  nothing  of  that  which  the  vulgar  call  sublime,  he  has 
learnt  to  see  that  iu  all  nature,  in  the  hedgerow  and  the  sand- 
bank, as  well  as  in  the  Alp  peak  and  the  ocean  waste,  is  a 
world  of  true  sublimity,  a  minute  infinite — an  ever-fertile  gar- 
den of  poetic  images,  the  roots  of  which  are  in  the  unfathom- 
able and  the  eternal,  as  truly  as  any  phenomenon  M'hich  as 
tonishes  and  awes  the  eye.  The  descriptions  of  the  desolate 
pools  and  creeks  where  the  dying  swan  floated,  the  hint  of  the 
silvery  marsh  mosses  by  Mariana's  moat,  came  to  me  like 
revelations.  1  always  knew  there  was  something  beautiful, 
wonderful,  sublime  in  those  flowery  dykes  of  Battersea-fields ; 
in  the  long  gravelly  sweeps  of  that  lone  tidal  shore  ;  and  here 
was  a  man  who  had  put  them  into  words  for  me  I  This  is 
what  I  call  democratic  art — the  revelation  of  the  poetry  which 
lies  in  common  things.  And  surely  all  the  age  is  tending  iu  I 
that  direction  :  in  Landseer  and  his  dogs — in  Fielding  and  \ 
his  downs,  with  a  host  of  noble  fellow-artists — and  in  all 
authors  who  have  really  seized  the  nation's  mind,  from  Crabbe 
and  Burns  and  Wordsworth  to  Hood  and  Dickens,  the  great 
tide  sets  ever  onward,  outward,  toward  that  which  is  common 
to  the  many,  not  that  which  is  exclusive  to  the  few — tow'ard 
the  likeness  of  Him  who  causes  His  rain  to  fall  on  the  just 
and  on  the  unjust,  and  His  sun  to  shine  on  the  evil  and  the 
good  ;  who  knoweth  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills,  and  ali 
the  beasts  of  the  field  are  in  His  sight. 

Well — I  must  return  to  my  story.  And  here  some  one 
may  ask  me,  "But  did  you  not  find  this  true  spiritual  de- 
mocracy, this  universal  knowledge  and  sympathy,  in  Shaks- 
peare  above  all  other  poets  ?"  It  may  be  my  shame  to  have 
to  confess  it ;  but  though  I  find  it  now,  I  did  not  then.  I  do 
not  think,  however,  my  case  is  singular  :  from  what  I  can 
ascertain,   there  is  even  with   regularly  educated  minds   a 


9J        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

period  of  life  at  which  that  great  writer  is  not  appreciated, 
just  on  account  of  his  very  greatness;  on  account  of  the  deep 
and  large  experience  which  the  true  understanding  of  his  plays 
requires — experience  of  man,  of  history,  of  art,  and  above  all 
of  those  sorrows  whereby,  as  Hezekiah  says,  and  as  I  have 
learnt  almost  too  well — "whereby  men  live,  and  in  all  which 
is  the  life  of  the  spirit."  At  seventeen,  indeed,  I  had  devour- 
ed Shakspeare,  though  merely  for  the  food  to  my  fancy  which 
his  plots  and  incidents  supplied,  for  the  gorgeous  coloring  of 
his  scenery  ;  but  at  the  period  of  M'hich  I  r.m  now  writinir,  I 
had  exhausted  that  source  of  mere  pleasure  ;  I  was  craving 
for  more  explicit  and  dogmatic  teaching  than  any  which  he 
seemed  to  supply  ;  and  ibr  three  years,  strange  as  it  may  ap- 
pear, I  hardly  ever  looked  into  his  pages.  Under  what  circum- 
stances I  afterward  recurred  to  his  exhaustless  treasures,  my 
readers  shall  in  due  time  be  told. 

So  I  worked  away  manfully  with  such  tools  and  stock  as 
I  possessed,  and  of  course  produced,  at  first,  like  all  young 
writers,  some  sufficiently  servile  imitations  of  my  favorite  poets. 
"Ugh  I"  said  Sandy,  "  wha  wants  mongrels  atween  I3urns 
and  Tennyson  1  A  gude  stock  baith,  but  gin  ye'd  cross  the 
breed  ye  maim  unite  the  spirits,  and  no  the  manners,  o'  the 
men.  Why  maun  ilk  a  one  the  noo  steal  his  neebor's  barna- 
cles before  he  glints  out  o'  windows  ]  Mak'  a  style  for  yoursel', 
laddie ;  ye're  na  mair  Scots  hind  than  ye  are  Lincolnshire 
laird ;  sae  gang  yer  ain  gate'  and  leave  them  to  gang  theirs; 
and  just  mak  a  gran',  brode,  simple  Saxon  style  for  yoursel'." 
"  But  how  can  T,  till  I  know  what  sort  of  a  style  it  ought 
to  be  ?" 

"01  but  yen's  amazing  like  lorn  Sheridan's  answer  to  his 
father.  'Tom,'  says  the  auld  man,  'I'm  thinking  ye  maun 
tak  a  wife.'  '  Verra  weel,  father,'  says  the  puir  skellum  ; 
'  and  wha's  wife  shall  I  tak  ?'  Wha's  style  shall  I  tak  1  say 
all  the  callants  the  noo.  Mak'  a  style  as  ye  would  mak'  a 
wife,  by  marrying  her  a'  to  yoursel'  ;  and  ye'll  nae  mair  ken 
what's  your  style  till  it's  made,  than  ye'll  ken  what  your 
wile's  like  till  she's  been  mony  a  year  by  your  ingle.'' 

"My  dear  Mackaye,"  I  said,  "you  have  the  most  unmer- 
ciful way  of  raising  difficulties,  and  then  leaving  poor  fellows 
to  lay  the  ghost  for  themselves." 

"  Hech,  then,  I'm  a'thegither  a  negative  teacher,  as  they 
ca'  it  in  the  new  lallans.  I'll  gang  out  o'  my  gate  to  tell  a 
man  his  kye  are  laired,  but  I'm  no  obligated  thereby  to  pu' 
them  out  for  him.     After  a',  nae  man  is  rid  o'  a  difficulty  tiU 


^ 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        95 

he's  conquered  it  single-handed  for  himsel'  :  besides,  I'm  nae 
poet,  mair's  the  gude  hap  for  you." 

"Why,  then?" 

"  Och,  och  !  they're  puir,  feckless,  crabbit,  unpractical 
bodies,  thae  poets  :  but  it'  it's  your  doom,  ye  maun  dree  it ; 
and  I'm  sair  afearcd  ye  ha'  gotten  the  disease  o'  genius, 
mair's  the  pity,  and  maun  write,  I  suppose,  willy-nilly.  Sohie 
folks'  booels  are  that  made  o'  catgut,  that  they  canna  stir 
without  chirruping  and  screeking." 

However,  ccsfro  pcrcitus,  I  wrote  on  ;  and  in  about  two 
years  and  a  half  had  got  together  "  Songs  of  the  Highways  " 
enough  to  fill  a  small  octavo  volume,  the  circumstances  ot 
whose  birth  shall  be  given  hereafter.  Whether  I  ever  at- 
tained to  any  thing  like  an  original  style,  readers  must  judge 
for  themselves — the  readers  of  the  said  volume,  I  mean,  for  I 
have  inserted  none  of  those  poems  in  this  my  autobiography; 
first,  because  it  seems  too  like  puffing  my  own  works  ;  and 
next,  because  I  do  not  want  to  injure  the  as  yet  not  over 
great  sale  of  the  same.  But,  if  any  one's  curiosity  is  so  far 
excited  that  he  wishes  to  see  what  I  have  accomplished,  the 
best  advice  which  I  can  give  him  is,  to  go  forth  and  buy  all 
the  working-men's  poetry  which  has  appeared  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  Avithout  favor  or  exception  ;  among  which  he 
must  needs,  of  course,  find  mine,  and  also,  I  am  happy  to  say, 
a  great  deal  M'hich  is  much  better  and  more  iustiuctive  than 
mine. 


CHAPTER  X. 

HOW  FOLKS  TURN  CHARTISTS. 

Those  who  read  my  story  only  for  amusement,  I  advise 
to  skip  this  chapter.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  really 
wish  to  ascertain  what  working-men  actually  do  sufier — to  sec 
whether  their  political  discontent  has  not  its  roots,  not  merely 
in  fanciful  ambition,  but  in  misery  and  slavery  most  real  and 
ai^onizing — those  in  whose  eyes  the  accounts  of  a  system,  or 
rather  barbaric  absence  of  all  system,  which  involves  starva- 
tion, nakedness,  prostitution,  and  long  imprisonment  in  dun- 
geons worse  than  the  cells  of  the  Inquisition,  will  be  invested 
with  something  at  least  of  tragic  interest,  may,  I  hope,  think 
it  worth  their  while  to  learn  how  the  clothes  which  they 
wear  are  made,  and  listen  to  a  few  occasional  statistics,  which 
though  they  may  seem  to  the  wealthy  mere  lists  of  dull  fig- 
ures, are  to  the  workmen  symbols  of  terrible  physical  realities 
— of  hunger,  degradation,  and  despair.* 

Well :  one  day  our  employer  died.  He  had  been  one  of 
the  old  sort  of  fashionable  West-end  tailors  in  the  fast  decreas- 
ing honorable  trade  ;  keeping  a  modest  shop,  hardly  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  a  dwelling-house,  except  by  his  name  on  the 
window-blinds.  He  paid  good  prices  for  worl. ,  though  net 
as  good,  of  course,  as  he  had  given  twenty  years  before,  and 
prided  himself  upon  having  all  his  work  done  at  home.  His 
work-rooms,  as  I  have  said,  were  no  elysiums ;  but  still,  as 
good,  alas  I  as  those  of  three  tailors  out  of  four.  He  was 
proud,  luxurious,  foppish  ;  but  he  was  honest  and  kindly 
enough,  and  did  many  a  generous  thing  by  men  who  had 
been  long  in  his  employ.  At  all  events,  his  journeymen 
could  live  on  what  he  paid  them. 

But  his  son,  succeeding  to  the  business,  determined,  like 
Kehoboam  of  old,  to  go  ahead  Avith  the  times.  Fired  with 
the  great  spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century — at  least  with  that 
one  which  is  vulgarly  considered  its  especial  glory — he  resolved 
to  make  haste  to  be  rich.     His  father  had  made  money  very 

*  Facts  still  worse  than  those  which  jNIr.  Locke's  story  contains  have 
been  made  public  by  the  Morning  Chronicle  in  a  series  of  noble  letters 
on  "Labor  and  the  Poor;"  which  we  entreat  all  Christian  people  to 
"read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest."  "That  will  be  belter  fta 
them ;"  as  Mahomet,  in  similar  cases,  used  to  Bay. 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  97 

slowly  of  late  ;  while  dozens,  who  had.  begun  business  long 
after  him,  had  now  retired  to  luxurious  ease  and  suburban 
villas.  Why  should  he  remain  in  the  minority  ?  Why 
should  he  not  get  rich  as  fast  as  he  could  ]  Why  should  he 
stick  to  the  old,  slow-going,  honorable  trade  ?  Out  of  some 
450  West-end  tailors,  there  were  not  one  hundred  left  Avho 
were  old-fashioned  and  stupid  enough  to  go  on  keeping  down 
their  own  profits  by  having  all  their  work  done  at  home  and 
at  first-hand.  -  Pvidiculous  scruples  I  The  government  knew 
none  such.  Were  not  the  army  clothes,  the  post-office  clothes, 
the  policemen's  clothes,  furnished  by  contractors  and  sweaters, 
who  hired  the  work  at  low  prices,  and  let  it  out  again  to 
journeyman  at  still  lower  ones  ?  Why  should  he  pay  his 
men  two  shillings  where  the  government  paid  them  one  ? 
Were  there  not  cheap  houses  even  at  the  AVest-end,  which 
had  saved  several  thousands  a  year  merely  by  reducing  their 
workmen's  wages  1  And  if  the  workmen  chose  to  take  lower 
wages,  he  was  not  bound  actually  to  make  them  a  present  of 
more  than  they  asked  for  I  They  would  go  to  the  cheapest 
market  for  any  thing  they  wanted,  and  so  must  he.  Besides, 
wages  had  really  been  quite  exorbitant.  Half  his  men  threv/ 
each  of  them  as  much  money  away  in  gin  and  beer  yearly, 
as  would  pay  two  workmen  at  a  cheap  house.  Why  was  he 
to  be  robbing  his  family  of  comforts  to  pay  for  their  extrava- 
gance 1  And  charging  his  customers,  too,  unnecessarily  high 
prices — it  was  really  robbing  the  public  I 

Such,  I  suppo.se,  were  some  of  the  arguments  which  led  to 
an  official  announcem.cnt,  one  Saturday  night,  that  our  young 
employer  intended  to  enlarge  his  establishment,  for  the  purpose  y 
of  commencing  business  in  the  "  show  trade  ;"  and  that,  em-    ^ 
ulous  of  Messrs.  Aaron,  Levi,  and  the  re.st  of  that  class,  mag-    i 
nificent  alterations  were  to  take  place  in  the  premises,  to  make     j 
room  for  which  our  work-rooms  Avere  to  be  demolished,  and     1 
that  for  that  reason — for  of  course  it  was  only  for  that  reason     j 
— all  work  would  in  future  be  given  out,  to  be  made  up  at 
the  men's  own  homes.  ^ 

Our  employer's  arguments,  if  they  were  such  as  I  suppose, 
were  reasonable  enough  according  to  the  present  code  of  com- 
mercial morahty.  But  strange  to  say,  the  auditory,  insensible 
to  the  delight  with  which  the  public  would  view  the  splendid 
architectural  improvements — with  taste  too  groveling  to  ap- 
preciate the  glories  of  plate-glass  shop  IVonts  and  brass  scroll 
work — too  selfish  to  rejoice,  for  its  own  sake,  in  the  beauty  of 
arabesques  and  chandeliers,  which  though  they  never  might 

E 


98         ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

behold,  the  astonished  public  would — with  souls  too  niggarJly 
to  leap  for  joy  at  the  thought  that  gents  would  henceforth  buy 
the  registered  guanaco  vest,  and  the  patent  elastic  omni-seas 
onum  paletot  half-a-crown  cheaper  than  ever — or  that  needy 
nobleman  would  pay  three  pound-ten,  instead  of  five  pounds, 
for  their  footmen's  liveries — received  the  news,  clod-hearted 
as  they  were,  in  sullen  silence,  and  actually,  when  they  got 
into  the  street,  broke  out  into  murmurs,  perhaps  into  execra- 
tions. 

"  Silence  I"  said  Crossthwaite  ;  "  walls  have  ears.  Come 
down  to  the  nearest  house  of  call,  and  talk  it  out  like  men. 
instead  of  grumbling  in  the  street,  like  fish-fags." 

So  down  we  went.  Crossthwaite,  taking  ray  arm,  strode 
on  in  moody  silence — once  muttering  to  himself  bitterly, 

"  Oh,  yes ;  all  right  and  natural  I  What  can  the  httle 
sharks  do  but  follow  the  big  ones  ?" 

We  took  a  room,  and  Crossthwaite  coolly  saw  us  all  in  ;  and 
locking  the  door,  stood  with  his  back  against  it. 

"Now  then,  mind,  'One  and  all,'  as  the  Cornishmen  say, 
and  no  peaching.  If  any  man  is  scoundrel  enough  to  carry 
tales,  I'll — " 

"  Do  what  1"  asked  Jemmy  Dowues,  who  had  settled  him- 
self on  the  table  with  a  pipe  and  a  pot  of  porter.  "  You 
arn't  the  King  of  the  Cannibal  Islands,  as  I  know  of,  to  cut 
a  cove's  head  offV 

"  No  ;  but  if  a  poor  man's  prayer  can  bring  God's  curse 
down  upon  a  traitor's  head — it  may  stay  on  his  rascally 
shoulders  till  it  rots." 

"  If  if 's  and  an's  were  pots  and  pans. — Look  at  Shechem 
Isaacs,  that  sold  penknives  in  the  street  six  months  ago,  now 
a-riding  in  his  own  carriage,  all  along  of  turning  sweater.  If 
God's  curse  is  like  that — I'll  be  happy  to  take  any  man'? 
share  of  it." 

Some  new  idea  seemed  twinkling  in  the  fellow's  cunning 
bloated  face  as  he  spoke.  I,  and  others  also,  shuddered  at 
liis  words  ;  but  we  all  forgot  them  a  moment  afterward,  as 
Crossthwaite  began  to  speak. 

"  We  were  all  bound  to  expect  this.  Every  working  tailoi 
must  come  to  this  at  last,  on  the  present  system  ;  and  we  are 
only  lucky  in  having  been  spared  so  long.  You  all  know 
where  this  will  end — in  the  same  misery  as  fifteen  thousand 
out  of  twenty  thousand  of  our  class  are  enduring  now.  We 
ehall  become  the  slaves,  often  the  bodily  prisoners,  of  Jews, 
middlemen,  and  sweaters,  who  draw  their  livelihood  out  of  our 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  ANiJ  POET.  99 

Btarvation.  We  shall  have  to  face,  as  the  rest  have,  ever  de- 
creasing prices  of  labor,  ever  increasing  profits  made  out  of  that 
labor  by  the  contractors  who  will  employ  us — arbitrary  fines, 
inflicted  at  the  caprice  of  hirelinos — the  competition  of  women, 
and  children,  and  starving^  Irish — our  hours  of  work  will  in- 
crease one-third,  our  actual  pay  decrease  to  less  than  one-half: 
and  in  all  this  we  shall  have  no  hope,  no  chance  of  improve- 
ment in  wages,  but  ever  more  penury,  slavery,  misery,  as  we 
are  pressed  on  by  those  who  are  sucked  by  fifties — almost  by 
hundreds — yearly,  out  of  the  honorable  trade  in  which  we 
were  brought  up,  into  the  infernal  system  of  contract  Avork. 
which  is  devouring  our  trade  and  many  others,  body  and  soul. 
Our  wives  will  be  forced  to  sit  up  niglit  and  day  to  help  us — 
our  children  must  labor  from  the  cradle,  without  chance  cf 
going  to  school,  hardly  of  breathing  the  fresh  air  of  Heaven, 
our  boys,  as  they  grow  up  must  turn  beggars  or  paupers — our 
daughters,  as  thousands  do,  must  eke  out  their  miserable  earn- 
ings by  prostitution.  And,  after  all,  a  whole  family  will  not 
gain  what  one  of  us  had  been  doing,  as  yet,  single-handed. 
You  know  there  will  be  no  hope  for  us.  There  is  no  us6 
appealing  to  government  or  parliament.  I  don't  want  to 
talk  politics  here.  I  shall  keep  them  for  another  place.  But 
you  can  recollect  as  well  as  1  can,  when  a  deputation  of  us 
went  up  to  a  member  of  parliament — one  that  was  reputed  a 
philosopher,  and  a  political  economist,  and  a  liberal — and  set 
before  him  the  ever-increasing  penury  and  misery  of  our  trade 
and  of  those  connected  with  it ;  you  recollect  his  answer — 
that,  however  glad  he  would  be  to  help  us,  it  was  impossible 
— he  could  not  alter  the  laws  of  nature — that  wages  were 
regulated  by  the  amount  of  competition  among  the  men  them- 
Belves,  and  that  it  was  no  business  of  government,  or  any  one 
else,  to  interfere  in  contracts  between  the  employer  and  em- 
ployed, that  those  things  regulated  themselves  by  the  laws  of 
political  economy,  which  it  was  madness  and  suicide  to  op- 
pose. He  may  have  been  a  wise  man.  I  only  know  that  he 
was  a  rich  one.  Every  one  speaks  well  of  the  bridge  which 
carries  him  over.  Every  one  fancies  the  laws  which  fill  his 
pockets  to  be  God's  laws.  But  I  say  this  :  If  neither  gov- 
ernment nor  members  of  parliament  can  help  us,  we  must 
help  ourselves.  Help  yourselves,  and  Heaven  will  help  yon. 
Combination  among  ourselves  is  the  only  chance.  One  thing 
we  can  do — sit  still." 

*'  And  starve  I"  said  some  one. 

*'  Yes,  and  starve  I     Better  starve  than  sin.     I  say,  it  is  a 


100  ALTOxN  LOCKE,  TAILOR  ANU  I'OET. 

feiu  tc  give  in  to  this  system.  It  is  a  sin  to  add  our  weight 
to  the  crowd  of  artisans  who  are  now  choking  and  strang- 
ling each  other  to  death,  as  the  prisoners  did  in  the  black  hole 
of  Calcutta.  Let  those  who  will,  turn  beasts  of  prey,  and 
feed  upon  their  fellows  ;  but  let  us  at  least  keep  ourselves 
pure.  It  may  be  the  law  of  political  civilization,  the  law  of 
nature,  that  the  rich  should  eat  up  the  poor,  and  the  poor  eat 
up  each  other.  Then  I  here  rise  up  and  curse  that  law,  that 
civilization,  that  nature.  Either  I  will  destroy  them,  or  they 
shall  destroy  me.  As  a  slave,  as  an  increased  burden  on  my 
i'ellow-sufierers,  I  will  not  live.  So  help  me  God  I  I  will 
take  no  Avork  home  to  my  house ;  and  I  call  upon  every  one 
here  to  combine,  and  to  sign  a  protest  to  that  eflect." 

"  What's  the  use  of  that,  my  good  Mr.  Crossthwaite  1"  in- 
terrupted some  one  querulously.  "  Don't  you  know  what 
come  of  the  strike  a  few  years  ago,  when  this  piece-work  and 
sweating  first  came  in  ?  The  masters  made  fine  promises, 
and  never  kept  'em  ;  and  the  men  who  stood  out  had  their 
places  filled  up  M'ith  poor  devils  who  were  glad  enough  to 
take  the  work  at  any  price — just  as  ours  will  be.  There's 
no  use  kicking  against  the  pricks.  All  the  rest  have  come  to 
it,  and  so  must  we.  We  must  live  somehow,  and  half  a 
leaf  is  better  than  no  bread  ;  and  even  that  half-loaf  will  go 
into  other  men's  mouths,  if  we  don't  snap  it  at  once.  Besides, 
we  can't  force  others  to  strike.  We  may  strike  and  starve 
ourselves,  but  what's  the  use  of  a  dozen  striking  out  of  twenty 
thousand  V 

"  Will  you  sign  the  protest,  gentlemen,  or  not  ?"  asked 
Crossthwaite,  in  a  determined  voice. 

Some  half-dozen  said  they  would,  if  the  others  would. 

"  And  the  others  won't.  Well,  after  all,  one  man  must 
take  the  responsibility,  and  I  am  that  man.  I  will  sign  the 
protest  by  myself.  I  will  sweep  a  crossing — I  will  turn  cress- 
gatherer,  rag-picker ;  I  will  starve  piecemeal,  and  sec  my 
wife  starve  with  me ;  but  do  the  wrong  thing  I  will  not ! 
The  Cause  wants  martyrs.     If  I  must  be  one,  I  must." 

All  this  while  my  mind  had  been  undergoing  a  strange 
perturbation  The  notion  of  escaping  that  infernal  Avork- 
room  and  the  company  I  met  there — of  taking  my  work 
home,  and  thereby,  as  I  hoped,  gaining  more  time  lor  study 
— at  least,  having  my  books  on  the  spot  ready  at  every  odd 
moment,  was  most  enticing.  I  had  hailed  the  proposed  change 
as  a  blessing  to  me,  till  1  heard  Crossthwaite's  arguments  : 
lOt  that  I  had  not  known  the  facts  bcfnrR,  but  it  had  never 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OLT.  101 

struck  me  till  then  that  it  was  a  real  sin  against  my  class  tc 
make  myself  a  party  in  the  system  by  which  they  were  allow- 
iug  themselves  (under  temptation  enoupfh,  God  knows),  to  be 
enslaved.  But  now  I  looked  with  horror  on  the  gulf  of  pen- 
ury before  me,  into  the  vortex  of  which  not  only  I,  but  my 
M'hole  trade,  seemed  irresistibly  sucked.  I  thought  with 
shame  and  remorse  of  the  few  shillings  which  I  had  earned, 
at  various  times  by  taking  piece-work  home,  to  buy  my  can- 
dles for  study.  I  whispered  my  doubts  to  Crossthwaite,  as 
he  sat,  pale  and  determined,  watching  the  excited  and  queru- 
lous discussions  among  the  other  workmen. 

"  What  ?  So  you  expect  to  have  time  to  read  ?  Study, 
after  sixteen  hours  a  day  stitching?  Study,  when  j"ou  can 
not  earn  money  enough  to  keep  you  from  wasting  and  shrink- 
ing away  day  by  day  ?  Study  with  your  heart  full  of  sharne 
and  indignation,  fresh  from  daily  insult  and  injustice  1  Study, 
with  the  black  cloud  of  despair  and  penury  in  front  of  you  ? 
Little  time,  or  heart,  or  strength,  will  you  have  to  study, 
when  you  are  making  the  same  coats  you  make  now,  at  half 
the  pi-ice." 

I  put  ray  name  down  beneath  Crossthwaite's  on  the  paper 
which  he  handed  me,  and  went  out  with  him. 

"Ay,"  he  muttered  to  himself,  "be  slaves — what  you  are 
worthy  to  be,  that  you  will  be  I  You  dare  not  combine — you 
dare  not  starve — you  dare  not  die — and  therefore  you  dare  not 
be  free  !  Oh  I  for  six  hundred  men  like  Barbaroux's  Marseil- 
lois — '  who  knew  how  to  die  I'  " 

"  Surely,  Crossthwaite,  if  matters  were  properly  represented 
to  the  government,  they  would  not,  for  their  own  existence 
sake,  to  put  conscience  out  of  the  question,  allow  such  a 
system  to  continue  growing." 

"  Government — government  ?  You  a  tailor,  and  not  know 
that  government  are  the  very  authors  of  this  s)-stem  ?  Not 
to  know  that  they  first  set  the  example,  by  getting  the  army 
and  navy  clothes  made  by  contractors,  and  taking  the  lowest 
tenders  ?  Not  to  know  that  the  police  clothes,  the  postmen's 
clothes,  the  convicts'  clothes,  are  all  contracted  for  on  the 
same  infernal  plan,  by  sweaters,  and  sweater's  sweaters,  and 
sweater's  sweater's  sweaters,  till  government  work  is  just  the 
very  last,  lowest  resource  to  which  a  poor  starved-out  wretch, 
betakes  himself  to  keep  body  and  soul  together]  Why,  the 
government  prices,  in  almost  every  department,  are  half,  and 
less  than  half,  the  very  lowest  living  price.  I  tell  you,  the 
careless  iniquity  of  government  about  these  things  will  come 


102  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOP  AND  POET. 

out  some  day.  It  will  be  known,  the  whole  abomination, 
and  future  generations  will  class  it  with  the  tyrannies  of  the 
Roman  emperors  and  the  Norman  barons.  Why,  it's  a  fact, 
that  the  colonels  of  the  regiments — noblemen,  most  of  them 
— make  their  own  vile  profit  out  of  us  tailors — out  of  the 
pauperism  of  the  men,  the  slavery  of  the  children,  the  prosti- 
tution of  the  women.  They  get  so  much  a  uniform  allowed 
them  by  government  to  clothe  the  men  Avith ;  and  then — then, 
they  let  out  the  jobs  to  the  contractors  at  less  than  half  what 
government  give  them,  and  pocket  the  difference.  And  then 
you  talk  of  appealing  to  government  I" 

"  Upon  my  word,"  I  said,  bitterly,  "we  tailors  seem  to  owe 
the  army  a  double  grudge.  They  not  only  keep  under  other 
artisans,  but  they  help  to  starve  us  first,  and  then  shoot  us, 
if  we  complain  too  loudly." 
'  "  Oh,  ho  I  your  blood's  getting  up,  is  it  ?  Then  you're  in 
the  humor  to  be  told  what  you  have  been  hankering  to  know 
so  long — where  Mackaye  and  I  go  at  night.  We'll  strike 
while  the  iron's  hot,  and  go  down  to  the  Chartist  meeting 
at ." 

"  Pardon  me,  my  dear  fellow,"  I  said.  "  I  can  not  bear  the 
thought  of  being  mixed  up  in  conspiracy — perhaps,  in  revolt 
and  bloodshed.  Not  that  I  arn  afraid.  Heaven  knows,  I  am 
not.  But  I  am  too  much  harassed,  miserable,  already.  I  see 
too  much  wretchedness  around  me,  to  lend  my  aid  in  increas- 
ing the  sum  of  suffering,  by  a  single  atom,  among  rich  and 
poor,  even  by  righteous  vengeance." 

"Conspiracy?  Bloodshed?  What  has  that  "to  do  with 
the  Charter?  It  suits  the  venal  Mammonite  press  well 
enough  to  jumble  them  together,  and  cry  'Murder,  rape,  and 
robbery,'  whenever  the  six  points  are  mentioned  ;  but  they 
know,  and  any  man  of  common  sense  ought  to  know,  that 
the  Charter  is  just  as  much  an  open  political  question  as  the 
Reform  Bill,  and  ten  times  as  much  as  Magna  Charta  was, 
when  it  got  passed.  What  have  the  six  points,  right  or  wrong, 
to  do  with  the  question  whether  they  can  be  obtained  by 
moral  force,  and  the  pressure  of  opinion  alone,  or  require  what 
we  call  ulterior  measures  to  get  them  carried  ?      Come  along !" 

So  with  him  I  went  that  night. 

"  Well,  Alton  I  where  was  the  treason  and  murder  ?  Your 
nose  must  have  been  a  sharp  one,  to  sm.ell  out  any  there. 
Did  you  hear  any  thing  that  astonished  your  weak  mind  so 
7ery  exceed  in  jrly,  after  all  7" 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        10:1 

■'  "  The  only  thing  that  did  astonish  me,  was  to  hear  men  ol 
my  own  class — and  lower  still,  perhaps,  some  of"  them — speak 
with  such  fluency  and  eloquence.  Such  a  fund  of  information 
— such  excellent  English — where  did  they  get  it  all  ?" 

"  From  the  God  who  knows  nothing  about  ranks.  They're 
the  nidinown  great,  the  unaccredited  heroes,  as  Master  Thomas 
Carl}  le  would  say,  whom  the  flunkies  aloft  have  not  ac- 
kno\\'ledged  yet — though  they'll  be  forced  to,  some  day,  with 
a  vengeance.     Are  you  convinced,  once  for  all  ?" 

I  really  do  not  understand  political  questions,  Crossth- 
waite." 

"  Does  it  want  so  very  much  wisdom  to  understand  the 
rights  and  the  wrongs  of  all  that  ?  Are  the  people  represent- 
ed? Are,  you  represented  1  Do  you  feel  like  a  man  that's 
got  any  one  to  fight  your  battle  in  parliament,  my  young 
friend,  eh?" 

"  I'm  sure  I  don't  know — " 

"  Why,  what  in  the  name  of  common  sense — what  interest 
or  feeling  of  yours  or  mine,  or  any  man's  you  ever  spoke  to, 

except  the  shopkeeper,  do  Alderman  A or  Lord  C 

D represent  ?     They  represent  property — and  we  have 

none.  They  represent  rank — we  have  none.  Vested  inter- 
ests— we  have  none.  Large  capitals — those  are  just  what 
crush  us.  Irresponsibility  of  employers,  slavery  of  the  em- 
ployed, competition  among  masters,  competition  among  work- 
men, that  is  the  system  they  represent — they  preach  it — they 
glory  in  it.  Why,  it  is  the  very  ogre  that  is  eating  us  all  up. 
They  are  chosen  by  the  few,  they  represent  the  few,  and  they 
make  laws  for  the  many — and  yet  you  don't  know  whether 
or  not  the  people  arc  represented  I" 

We  were  passing  by  the  door  of  the  Victoria  Theatre  ;  it 
was  just  half-price  time — and  the  beggary  and  rascality  of 
London  were  pouring  in  to  their  low  amusement,  from  the 
neighboring  gin  palaces  and  thieves'  cellars.  A  herd  of  rag- 
ged boys,  vomiting  forth  slang,  filth,  and  blasphemy,  pushed 
past  us,  compelling  us  to  take  good  care  of  our  pockets. 

"  Look  there  I  look  at  the  amusements,  the  training,  the 
civilization,  which  the  government  permits  to  the  children  of 
Ihe  people  !  These  licensed  pits  of  darkness,  traps  of  tempta- 
tion, profligacy,  and  ruin,  triumphantly  yawning  niirht  after 
night — and  then  tell  me  that  the  people  who  see  their  chil- 
dren thus  kidnapped  into  hell,  are  represented  by  a  govern- 
ment who  licenses  such  things  I" 

"  WouH  a  change  in  the  franchise  cure  that  V 


104  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET. 

*  Household  suffrage  mightn't — but  give  us  the  C'hartei, 
and  we'll  see  about  it !  Give  us  the  Charter,  and  we'll  send 
workmen  into  parliament  that  shall  soon  find  out  whether 
something  better  can't  be  put  in  the  way  of  the  ten  thousand 
boys  and  girls  in  London  who  live  by  theft  and  prostitution, 
than  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Victoria— a  pretty  name  I 
They  say  the  Queen's  a  good  woman — and  I  don't  doubt  it. 
I  wonder  often  if  she  knows  what  her  precious  namesake  here 
is  like  V 

"  But,  really,  I  can  not  see  how  a  mere  change  in  repre- 
sentation can  cure  such  things  as  that." 

"Why,  didn't  they  tell  us,  before  the  Reform  Bill,  that  ex- 
tension of  the  suffrage  was  to  cure  every  thing  ?  And  how 
can  you  have  too  much  of  a  good  thing  ?  We've  only  taken 
them  al  their  word,  we  Chartists.  Haven't  all  politicians 
een  preaching  for  years  that  England's  national  greatness 
vas  all  owing  to  her  political  institutions — to  Magna  Charta, 
and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  representative  parliaments,  and 
all  thati  It  \vas  but  the  other  day  I  got  hold  of  some  Tory 
paper,  that  talked  about  the  English  constitution,  and  the 
balance  of  queen,  lords,  and  commons,  as  the  '  Talisnianic 
Palladium'  of  the  country.  'Gad,  we'll  see  if  a  move  onward 
in  the  same  line  won't  better  the  matter.  If  the  balance  of 
classes  is  such  a  blessed  thinjr,  the  sooner  we  get  the  balance 
equal,  the  better;  for  its  rather  lopsided  just  now,  no  one 
can  deny.  So,  representative  institutions  are  the  talismanic 
palladium  of  the  nation,  are  they  ]  The  palladium  of  the 
classes  that  have  them,  I  dare  say  ;  and  that's  the  very  best 
reason  why  the  classes  that  haven't  got  'em  should  look  out 
for  the  same  palladium  for  themselves.  What's  sauce  for 
the  gander  is  sauce  for  the  goose,  isn't  it  1  We'll  try — we'll 
see  whether  the  talisman  they  talk  of  has  lost  its  power  all 
of  a  sudden  since  '32 — whether  we  can't  rub  the  magic  ring 
a  little  for  ourselves,  and  call  up  genii  to  help  us  out  of  the 
mire,  as  the  shopkeepers  and  the  gentlemen  have  done." 

From  that  night  I  was  a  Chartist,  heart  and  soul — and  so 
were  a  million  and  a  half  more  of  the  best  artisans  in  En- 
gland— at  least,  I  had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  my  com- 
pany. Yes ;  I  too,  like  Crossthwaite,  took  the  upper  classes 
at  their  word  ;  bowed  down  to  the  idol  of  political  institutions, 
and  pinned  my  hopes  of  salvation  on  '  the  possession  of  one« 
tenthousandth  part  of  a  talker  in  the  national  palaver.' 
True,  1  desired  tlie  Charter,  at  first  (as  I  do,  indeed,  at  thi 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        uu 

inoinenl),  as  a  means  (o  gloi'ious  ends — not  only  because  il 
would  give  a  cliauce  of  elevation,  a  free  sphere  of  action,  to 
lowly  worth  and  talent ;  but  because  it  was  the  path  to 
reforms — social,  legal,  sanitary,  educational — to  which  the 
veriest  Tory — certainly  not  the  great  and  good  Lord  Ashley 
— would  not  object.  But  soon,  witli  me,  and  I  am  afraid 
with  many,  many  more,  the  means  became,  by  the  frailty  of 
poor  human  nature,  an  end,  an  idol  in  itself.  1  had  so  made 
up  my  mind  that  it  was  the  only  method  of  getting  what  I 
wanted,  that  I  neglected,  alas  I  but  too  often,  to  try  the 
methods  which  lay  already  by  me.  "If  we  had  but  the 
Charter" — was  the  excuse  lor  a  thousand  lazinesses,  procras- 
tinations. "If  we  had  but  the  Charter" — 1  should  be  good, 
and  free,  and  happy.  Fool  that  I  was  I  It  was  within, 
rather  than  without,  that  I  needed  reform. 

And  so  I  began  to  look  on  man  (and  too  many  of  us,  I  am 
afraid,  are  doing  so)  as  the  creature  and  puppet  of  circum- ., 
stances — of  the  particular  outward  system,  social  or  political,  - 
in  which  he  happens  to  find  himself  An  abominable  heresy, 
no  doubt;  but,  somehow,  it  appears  to  me  just  the  same  as 
Benthamites,  and  economists,  and  high-churchmen,  too,  for 
that  matter,  have  been  preaching  for  the  last  twenty  years 
with  great  applause  from  their  respective  parties.  One  set 
informs  the  world  that  it  is  to  be  regenerated  by  cheap  bread, 
free  trade,  and  that  peculiar  form  of  the  "  freedom  of  indus- 
try" which,  in  plain  language,  signifies  "  the  despotism  of 
capital ;"  and  which,  whatever  it  means,  is  merely  some  out- 
ward system,  circumstance,  or  "dodge,"  about  man,  and  not 
in  him.  Another  party's  nostrum  is  more  churches,  more 
schools,  more  clergymen — excellent  things  in  their  way — bet- 
ter even  than  cheap  bread,  or  free  trade,  provided  only  that 
they  are  excellent — that  the  churches,  schools,  cler<?-ymen, 
are  good  ones.  But  the  party  of  whom  I  am  speaking  seem 
to  us  workmen  to  consider  the  quality  quite  a  secondary  con- 
sideration, compared  with  the  quantity.  They  expect  the 
world  to  be  regenerated,  not  by  becoming  more  a  Church — 
none  would  gladlier  help  them  in  bringing  that  about  than 
the  Chartists  themselves,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem — but 
by  being  dosed  somewhat  more  with  a  certain  "  Church  sys- 
tem," circumstance,  or  "  dodge."  For  my  part,  I  seem  to 
have  learnt  that  the  only  thing  to  regenerate  the  world  is  not  ' 
more  of  any  system,  good  or  bad,  but  simply  more  of  the  ', 
Spirit  of  God. 

About  tli'i  .sujiposed   omnipotence    "f  'li'*    C'laiter   I    hav»'    f 


loe  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

found  out  my  mistake.  I  believe  no  more  in  "  Morison's- 
Pill-remedies,"  as  Thomas  Carlyle  calls  them.  Talismans 
are  worthless.  The  afre  of  spirit-compelling  spells,  whether  of 
>  parchment  or  carbuncle,  is  past — if,  indeed,  it  ever  existed. 
The  Charter  will  no  more  make  men  good,  than  political 
economy,  or  the  observance  of  the  Church  Calendar — a  fact 
which  ^^e  working-men,  I  really  believe,  have,  under  the 
pressure  of  wholesome  defeat  and  God-sent  affliction,  found 
out  sooner  than  our  more  "  enlightened"  fellow-idolaters. 
But,  at  that  time,  as  I  have  confessed  already,  we  took 
our  betters  at  their  word,  and  believed  in  Morison's  Pills. 
Only,  as  we  looked  at  the  world  from  among  a  class  of  facts 

(somewhat  difierent  from  theirs,  we  diflered  from  them  pro- 
portionably  as  to  our  notions  of  the  proper  ingredients  in  the 
said  Pill. 

/         But  what  became  of  our  protest. 

I  It  was  received — and  disregarded.  As  for  turning  us  ofi^ 
we  had,  de  facto,  like  Coriolanus  banished  the  Romans, 
turned  our  master  ofl'  All  the  other  hands,  some  forty  in 
number,  submitted  and  took  the  yoke  upon  them,  and  went 
dovv'n  into  the  house  of  bondage,  knowing  whither  they  went. 
Every  man  of  them  is  now  a  beggar,  compared  with  what 
he  was  then.  Many  are  dead  in  the  prime  of  life  of  con- 
sumption, bad  food  and  lodging,  and  the  peculiar  diseases  of 
our  trade.  Some  have  not  been  heard  of  lately — we  fancy 
them  imprisoned  in  some  sv/eaters'  dens — but  thereby  hangs  a 
tale,  whereof"  more  hereafter. 

But  it  was  singular,  that  every  one  of  the  six  who  had 
merely  professed  their  conditional  readiness  to  sign  the  protest, 
v/ere  contumeliously  discharged  the  next  day,  without  any 
reason  being  assigned.  It  was  evident  that  there  had  been 
a  traitor  at  the  meeting  ;  and  every  one  suspected  Jemmy 
Downes,  especially  as  he  fell  into  the  new  system  with  sus- 
piciously strange  alacrity.  But  it  was  as  impossible  to  prove 
the  ofiense  against  him  as  to  punish  him  for  it.  Of  that 
wretched  man,  too,  and  his  subsequent  career,  1  shall  have 
somewhat  to  say  her-eafter.  "''"•^-i"  there  is  a  God  who 
judgeth  the  earth  I 

But  now  behold  me  and  my  now  intimate  and  beloved 
friend,  Crossthwaite,  with  nothing  to  do — a  gentlemanlike 
occupation;  but,  unfortunately,  in  our  clas.s,  involving  starv- 
ation. "What  was  to  be  done?  We  applied  for  work  at 
Rcveral  "honorable  shops  ;"   but  at  all  we  received  the  same 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  107 

answer.  Their  trade  was  decreasing — the  public  ran  daily 
more  and  more  to  the  cheap  show  shops — and  they  themselves 
were  forced,  in  order  to  compete  with  these  latter,  to  put 
more  and  more  of  their  work  out  at  contract  prices.  Facilis 
descensus  Averni !  Having  once  been  hntitled  out  of  the 
serried  crowd  of  competing  workmen,  it  was  impossible  to 
Ibrce  our  way  in  again.  So,  a  week  or  ten  days  past,  our 
little  stocks  of  money  were  exhausted.  1  was  downhearted 
a',  once  ;  but  Crossthwaite  bore  up  gayly  enough. 

"  Katie  and  I  can  pick  a  crust  together  without  snarling 
over  it.  And,  thank  God,  I  have  no  children,  and  never  in- 
tend to  have,  if  I  can  keep  true  to  myself,  till  the  good  times 
come." 

"Oh  I  Crossthwaite,  are  not  children  a  blessing  ?" 

"  Would  they  be  a  blessing  to  me  now  ?  No,  my  lad. 
Let  those  bring  slaves  into  the  world  who  will  I  I  will  never 
beget  children  to  swell  the  numbers  of  those  who  are  tram- 
pling each  other  down  in  the  struggle  for  daily  bread,  to 
minister  in  ever  deepening  poverty  and  misery  to  the  rich 
man's  luxury — perhaps  his  lust." 

"  Then  you  believe  in  the  Malthusian  doctrines?" 

"  I  believe  them  to  be  an  infernal  lie,  Alton  Locke  ;  though 
good  and  M'ise  people  like  Miss  Martineau  may  sometimes 
be  deluded  into  preaching  them.  I  believe  there's  room  on 
English  soil  for  twice  the  number  there  is  now  ;  and  when 
we  get  the  Charter  we'll  prove  it ;  we'll  show  that  God 
meant  living  human  heads  and  hands  to  be  blessings  and  not 
curses,  tools  and  not  burdens.  But  in  such  times  as  these, 
let  those  who  have  wives  be  as  though  they  had  none — as 
St.  Paul  said,  when  he  told  his  people  under  the  Roman  em- 
peror to  be  above  begetting  slaves  and  martyrs.  A  man  of 
the  people  should  keep  himself  as  free  from  incumbrances 
as  he  can  just  now.  lie  will  find  it  all  the  more  easy  to 
dare  and  suffer  for  the  people,  when  their  turn  comes — '' 

And  he  set  his  teeth  firmly,  almost  savagely. 

'•I  think  I  can  earn  a  few  shilhngs,  now  and  then,  by 
writing  for  a  paper  I  know  of.  If  that  won't  do,  I  must  take 
up  agitating  for  a  trade,  and  live  by  spouting,  as  many  a 
Vory  member  as  well  as  Hadical  ones  do.  A  man  may  do 
worse,  for  ho  may  do  nothing.  At  all  events,  my  only  chance 
now  is  to  help  on  the  Charter;  for  the  sooner  it  comes  the 
better  for  me.  And  if  I  die — why  the  little  woman  won't  be 
long  in  coming  after  me,  I  know  that  well ;  and  there's  a 
tough  business  got  well  over  for  both  of  us  I  ' 


108  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Hech,"  said  Sandy, 

"  To  every  man 
Death  comes  but  once  a  life — 

as  my  countryman,  Mr.  Macaulay  says,  in  thae  gran'  Roman 
ballants  o'  his.  But  for  ye,  Alton,  laddie,  ye're  owre  young 
to  start  oft'  in  the  People's  Church  Meelitant,  sae  just  bide 
wi'  me,  and  the  barrel  o'  meal  in  the  corner  there  winna 
waste,  nae  mair  than  it  did  wi'  the  widow  o'  Zareptha  ;  a 
tale  which  coincides  sae  weel  wi'  the  everlasting  righteous- 
nesses, that  I'm  at  times  no  inclined  to  consider  it  a'thegither 
mythical." 

But  I,  with  thankfulness  which  vented  itself  through  my 
eyes,  finding  my  lips  alone  too  narrow  for  it,  refu.sed  to  eat 
the  bread  of  idleness. 

"  Aweel,  then,  ye'll  just  mind  the  shop,  and  dust  books 
whiles  ;  I'm  getting  auld  and  stifl^  and  ha'  need  o'  help  i'  the 
business." 

"  No,"  I  said  ;  '•  you  say  so  out  of  kindness;  but  if  you  can 
afford  no  greater  comforts  than  these,  you  can  not  afford  to 
keep  me  in  addition  to  yourself." 

"  Hech,  then  I  How  do  ye  ken  that  the  auld  Scot  eats  a' 
he  makes?  I  was  na  born  the  spending  side  o'  Tweed,  my 
man.  But  gin  ye  dauer,  why  dinna  ye  pack  up  your  duds, 
and  the  poems  wi'  them,  and  gang  till  your  cousin  i'  the  uni- 
versity ?  he'll  surely  put  you  in  the  way  o'  publishing  them. 
He's  bound  to  it  by  blude  ;  and  there's  na  shame  in  asking 
him  to  help  you  toward  reaping  the  fruits  o'  your  ain  labors. 
A  few  punds  on  a  bond  for  repayment  when  the  edition  was 
sauld,  noo,  I'd  do  that  lor  mysel'  ;  but  I'm  thinking  ye'd 
better  try  to  get  a  list  o'  subscribers.  Dinna  mind  your  in- 
dependence ;  it's  but  spoiling  the  Egyptians,  ye  ken  ;  and 
thae  bit  ballants  will  be  their  money's  worth,  I'll  warrant, 
and  tell  them  a  wheen  facts  they're  no  that  well  acquentit 
wi'.    Hech?  Johnnie,  my  Chartist ?" 

"  Why  not  go  to  my  uncle  ?" 

"  Puir  sugar-and-spice-selling  baillie  bodie  I  is  there  aught 
in  his  ledger  about  poetry,  and  the  incommensurable  value  o' 
the  products  o'  genius  ?  Gang  till  the  young  scholar  :  he's  a 
canny  one,  too,  and  he'll  ken  it  to  be  worth  his  while  to  fash 
himsel'  a  wee  anent  it." 

So  I  packed  up  my  little  bundle,  and  lay  awake  all  that 
night  in  a  fever  of  expectation  about  the  as  yet  unknown 
world  of  green  fields  and  woods  through  which  my  road  to 
Cambridge  lay. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

"THE  YARD  WHERE  THE  GENTLEMEN  LIVE." 

I  MAY  be  forgiven,  surely,  if  I  run  somewhat  into  detail 
about  this  my  first  visit  to  the  country. 

I  had,  as  I  have  said  before,  literally  never  been  farther  a- 
field  than  Fulham  or  Battersea  Pvise.  One  Sunday  evening, 
indeed,  I  had  got  as  far  as  Wandsworth  Common  ;  but  it  was 
March,  and,  to  my  extreme  disappointment,  the  heath  was 
not  in  flower. 

But,  usually,  my  Sundays  had  been  spent  entirely  in  study  ; 
■which  to  me  w^as  rest,  so  worn  out  were  both  my  body  and 
my  mind  with  the  incessant  drudgery  of  my  trade,  and  the 
slender  fare  to  which  I  restricted  myself  Since  I  had  lodged 
with  Mackaye,  certainly,  my  food  had  been  better.  I  had 
not  required  to  stint  my  appetite  for  money  wherewith  to  buy 
candles,  ink,  and  pens.  My  wages,  too,  had  increased  with 
my  years,  and  altogether  I  found  myself  gaining  in  strength, 
though  I  had  no  notion  how  much  I  possessed  till  I  set  forth 
on  this  walk  to  Cambridge. 

It  was  a  glorious  morning  at  the  end  of  May  ;  and  when 
I  escaped  from  the  pall  of  smoke  which  hung  over  the  city,  I 
found  the  sky  a  sheet  of  cloudless  blue.  How  I  watched  for 
the  ending  of  the  rows  of  houses,  which  lined  the  road  for 
miles — the  great  roots  of  London,  running  far  out  into  the 
country,  up  which  poured  past  me  an  endless  stream  of  food, 
and  merchandise,  and  human  beings — the  sap  of  the  huge 
metropolitan  life-tree  I  How  each  turn  of  the  road  opened  a 
fresh  line  of  terraces  or  villas,  till  hope  deferred  made  the  heart 
sick,  and  the  country  seemed — like  the  place  where  the  rain- 
bow touches  the  ground,  or  the  El  Dorado  of  Ptaleigh's  Guiana 
settlers — always  a  little  farther  ofl'!  How,  between  gaps  in 
the  houses,  right  and  left.  I  caught  tantalizing  glimpses  of 
preen  fields,  shut  from  me  by  dull  lines  of  high-spiked  palings  ! 
How  I  peeped  through  gates  and  over  fences  at  trim  lawns 
and  gardens,  and  longed  to  stay,  and  admire,  and  speculate 
on  the  names  of  the  strange  plants  and  gaudy  flowers  ;  and 
then  hurried  on,  always  expecting  to  find  something  still  finer 
ahead — something  really  worth  stopping  to  look  at — till  the 
bouses  thickened  again  into  a  street,  and  1  faund  myself,  to 
my  disappointment,  in  the  midst  of  a  town  '     And  then  more 


no  ALT(jN  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

villas  and  palings ;  and  then  a  village  ;  when  would  they  stoj 
those  endless  houses  1 

At  last  they  did  stop.  Gradually  the  people  whom  I  pass 
ed  began  to  look  more  and  more  rural,  and  more  toil-worn 
and  ill-fed.  The  houses  ended,  cattle  yards  and  farm  build- 
ings appeared;  and,  right  and  left,  far  away,  spread  the  low 
rolling  sheet  of  green  meadows  and  corn  fields.  Oh,  the  joy  ! 
The  lawns  with  their  high  elms  and  firs,  the  green  hedge- 
rows, the  delicate  hue  and  scent  of  the  fresh  clover  fields, 
the  steep  clay  banks  where  I  stopped  to  pick  nosegays  of  wild 
flowers,  and  became  again  a  child,  and  then  recollected  my 
mother,  and  a  walk  with  her  on  the  river  bank  toward  the 
Pved  House.  1  hurried  on  again,  but  could  not  be  unhappy, 
while  my  eyes  ranged  free,  lor  the  first  time  in  my  life,  over 
the  checkered  squares  of  cultivation,  over  glittering  brooks, 
and  hills  quivering  in  the  green  haze,  while  above  hung  the 
skylarks,  pouring  out  their  souls  in  melody.  And  then,  as  the 
sun  grew  hot,  and  the  larks  dropped  one  by  one  into  the  grow- 
ing corn,  the  new  delight  of  the  blessed  silence  I  I  listened  to 
the  stillness  ;  for  noise  had  been  my  native  element ;  I  had 
become  in  London  quite  unconscious  of  the  ceaseless  roar  of 
the  human  sea,  casting  up  mire  and  dirt.  And  now,  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  the  crushing,  confusing  hubbub  had  flowed 
away,  and  left  my  brain  calm  and  free.  Ilow  I  felt  at  that 
moment  a  capability  of  clear,  bright  meditation,  which  was  as 
new  to  me,  as  I  believe  it  would  have  been  to  most  London- 
ers in  my  position.  I  can  not  help  fancying  that  our  unnatu- 
ral atmosphere  of  excitement,  physical  as  well  as  moral,  is  to 
blame  for  very  much  of  the  working-men's  restlessness  and 
fierceness.  As  it  was,  I  felt  that  every  step  forward,  every 
breath  of  fresh  air,  gave  me  new  life.  I  had  gone  fifteen 
miles  before  I  recollected  that,  for  the  first  time  for  many 

i  months,  I  had  not  coughed  since  I  rose. 

'      So  on  I  went,  down  the  broad,  bright  road,  which  seemed  to 
beckon  me  forward  into  the  unknown  expanses  of  human  life. 

The  world  was  all  before  me,  where  to  choose, 

and  I  saw  it  both  with  my  eyes  and  my  imagination,  in  the 
Lemper  of  a  boy  broke  loose  from  school.  My  heart  kept 
holiday.  I  loved  and  blessed  the  birds  which  flitted  past  me, 
and  the  cows  which  lay  dreaming  on  the  sward.  I  recollect 
stopping  with  delight  at  a  picturesque  descent  into  the  road, 
to  watch  a  nursery  garden,  full  of  roses  of  every  shade,  I'rom 
brilliant  yellow  to  darkest  purple;  and  as  I  wondered  at  the 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        Ul 

innumerable  variety  of  beauties  which  man's  art  had  devel- 
oped from  a  few  poor  and  wild  species,  it  seemed  to  me  the 
most  delightful  life  on  earth,  to  follow  in  such  a  place  the 
prinioDval  trade  of  gardener  Adam;  to  study  the  secrets  of 
the  flower  \vorld,  the  laws  of  soil  and  climate;  to  create  new 
species,  and  gloat  over  the  living  fruit  of  one's  own  science 
and  perseverance.  And  then  I  recollected  the  tailor's  shop, 
and  the  Charter,  and  the  starvation,  and  the  oppression,  which 
I  had  left  behind,  and  ashamed  of  my  own  selfishness,  went 
hurrying  on  again. 

At  last  I  came  to  a  wood — the  first  real  wood  that  I  had 
ever  seen ;  not  a  mere  party  of  stately  park  trees  growing  out 
of  smooth  turf,  but  a  real  wild  copse ;  tangled  branches  and 
gray  stems  fallen  across  each  other;  deep,  ragged  underwoods 
of  shrubs,  and  great  ferns  like  princes'  leathers,  and  gay  beds 
of  flowers,  blue  and  pink  and  yellow,  with  butterflies  flitting 
about  them,  and  trailers  that  climbed  and  dangled  from  bough 
to  bough — a  poor  commonplace  bit  of  copse,  I  daresay,  in  the 
world's  eyes,  but  to  me  a  I'airy  wilderness  of  beautiful  forms, 
mysterious  gleams  and  shadows,  teeming  with  manifold  life. 
As  I  stood  looking  wistfully  over  the  gate,  alternately  at  the 
inviting  vista  of  the  green  embroidered  path,  and  then  at  the 
grim  notice  over  my  head,  "All  trespassers  prosecuted,"  a 
young  man  came  up  the  ride,  dressed  in  velveteen  jacket  and 
leather  gaiters,  sufficiently  bedrabbled  with  mud.  A  fishing- 
rod  and  basket  bespoke  him  some  sort  of  destroyer,  and  I  saw 
in  a  moment  that  he  was  "a  gentleman."  After  all,  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  looking  like  a  gentleman.  There  are  men 
whose  class  no  dirt  or  rags  could  hide,  any  more  than  they 
could  Ulysses.  I  have  seen  such  men  in  plenty  among  work- 
men, too ;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  gentlemen — by  whom  I  do 
not  mean  just  now  the  rich — have  the  superiority  in  that 
point.  But  not,  please  God,  forever.  Give  us  the  same  air, 
water,  exei'cise,  education,  good  society,  and  you  will  see 
whether  this  "  haggardness,"  this  "coarseness,"  &c.,  &c.,  for 
the  list  is  too  long  to  specify,  be  an  accident,  or  a  property,  ol 
the  man  of  the  people. 

"  May  I  go  into  your  wood  ?"  asked  I  at  a  venture,  curios- 
ity conquering  pride. 

"  Well  I  what  do  you  want  there,  my  good  fellow  ?" 

"  To  see  what  a  wood  is  like — I  never  was  in  one  in  my 
life." 

"  Il/miph  I  well — you  may  go  in  for  that,  and  welcome. 
Never  was  in  a  wood  in  his  life !  poor  devil  I" 


112  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Thank  you  '"  quoth  I.  And  I  slowly  clambered  ovei 
the  gate.  Ho  put  his  hand  carelessly  on  the  top  rail,  vaulted 
over  it  like  a  deer,  and  then  turned  to  stare  at  me. 

"  Hullo  I  I  say — I  forgot — don't  go  far  in,  or  ramble  up 
and  down,  or  you'll  disturb  the  pheasants." 

I  thanked  him  again  for  what  license  he  had  given  me — went 
in,  and  lay  down  by  the  path-side. 

Here,  I  suppose,  by  the  rules  of  modern  art,  a  picturesque 
description  of  the  said  wood  should  follow;  but  I  am  the  most 
incompetent  person  in  the  world  to  write  it.      And,  indeed, 
the  whole  scene  was  so  novel  to  me,  that  I  had  no  time  to 
analyze ;  I  could  only  enjoy.    I  recollect  lying  on  my  face  and 
fingermg  over  the  dehcately  cut  leaves  of  the  weeds,  and  won- 
dering whether  the  people  who  lived  in  the  country  thought 
them  as  wonderful  and  beautiful  as  I  did ;  and  then  I  recol- 
lected the  thousands  whom  I  had  left  behind,  who,  like  ine, 
had  never  seen  the  green  fac^  of  God's  earth  ;  and  the  answer 
of  the  poor  gamin  in  St.  Giles's,  who,  when  he  was  asked 
what  the  country  was,  answered,  "the  yard  where  the gent.lc- 
7716)1  live  tvhe7i  they  go  out  of  toic7i,"  significant  that,  and 
pathetic;  then  I  wondered  whether  the  time  would  ever  come 
when  society  would  be  far  enough  advanced  to  open  to  even 
such  as  he  a  glimpse,  if  it  were  only  once  a  year,  of  the  fresh 
clean  face  of  God's  earth ;  and  then  I  became  aware  of  a  soft 
mysterious  hum,  above  me  and  around  me,  and  turned  on  my 
back  to  look  whence  it  proceeded,  and  saw  the  leaves,  gold — 
green  and  transparent  in  the  sunlight,  quivering  against  the 
deep  heights  of  the  empyrean  blue;  and,  hanging  in  the  sun- 
beams that  pierced  the  foliage,  a  thousand  insects,  like  specks 
of  fire,  that  poised  themselves  motionless  on  thrilling  wings, 
and  darted  away,  and  returned  to  hang  motionless  again;  and 
I  wondered  what  they  eat,  and  whether  they  thought  about 
any  thing,  and  whether  they  enjoyed  the  sunlight ;  and  then 
that  brought  back  to  me  the  times  when  1  used  to  lie  dream- 
ing in  my  crib  on  summer  mornings,  and  watched  the  flies 
dancing  reels  between  me  and  the  ceiling;  and  that  again 
brought  the  thought  of  Susan  and  my  mother;  and  I  prayed 
for  them — not  sadly — I  could  not  be  sad  there;  and  prayed 
that  we  might  all  meet  again  some  day  and  live  happily  to- 
gether; perhaps  in  the  country,  where  1  could  write  poems  in 
peace;  and  then,  by  degrees,  my  sentences  and  thoughts  grew 
incoherent,  and  in  happy,  stupid  animal  comfort,  I  faded  away 
into  a  heavy  sleep,  which  lasted  an  hour  or  more,  till  I  was 
awakened   by  tlu'  ellbris  of  certain  enterprising  great  black 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  113 

and  red  aiits,  who  were  trying  to  found  a  small  Algeria  in 
my  left  ear. 

I  rose  and  left  the  wood,  and  a  gate  or  two  on,  stopped 
again  to  look  at  the  same  sportsman  lishing  in  a  clear  silver 
brook.  I  could  not  help  admiring  with  a  sort  of  childish  won- 
der the  graceful  and  practiced  aim  with  which  he  directed  his 
tiny  bait,  and  called  up  mysterious  dimples  on  the  surface, 
Avhich  in  a  moment  increased  to  splashings  and  slrugglings 
of  a  great  fish,  compelled,  as  if  by  some  invisible  spell,  to  fol- 
low the  point  of  the  bending  rod  till  he  lay  panting  on  the 
bank.  I  confess,  in  spite  of  all  my  class  prejudices  against 
"game-preserving  aristocrats,"  I  almost  envied  the  man;  at 
least  I  seemed  to  understand  a  little  of  the  universally  attract- 
ive charms  which  those  same  outwardly  contemptible  field 
sports  possess ;  the  fresh  air,  fresh  fields  and  copses,  fresh  run- 
ning brooks,  the  exercise,  the  simple  freedom,  the  excitement 
just  sufficient  to  keep  alive  expectation  and  banish  thought. 
After  all,  his  trout  produced  much  the  same  mood  in  him  as 
my  turnpike  road  did  in  me.  And  perhaps  the  man  did  not 
go  fishing  or  shooting  every  day.  The  laws  prevented  him 
from  shooting  at  least  all  the  year  round  ;  so  sometimes  there 
might  be  something  in  which  he  made  himself  of  use.  An 
honest,  jolly  face  too  he  had — not  without  thought  and 
strength  in  it.  "  Well,  it  is  a  strange  world,"  said  I  to  my- 
self, "where  those  who  can,  need  not;  and  those  who  can  not 
must  I" 

Then  he  came  close  to  the  gate,  and  I  left  it  just  in  time 
to  see  a  little  group  arrive  at  it — a  woman  of  his  own  rank, 
young,  pretty,  and  simply  dressed,  with  a  little  boy,  decked 
out  as  a  Highlander,  on  a  shaggy  Shetland  pony,  which  his 
mother,  as  I  guessed  her  to  be,  was  leading.  And  then  they 
all  met,  and  the  little  fellow  held  up  a  basket  of  provisions  to 
his  father,  who  kissed  him  across  the  gate,  and  hung  his  creel 
of  fish  behind  the  saddle,  and  patted  the  mother's  shoulder, 
as  she  looked  up  lovingly  and  laughingly  in  his  face.  Alto- 
gether, a  joyous,  genial  bit  of Nature  1     Yes,  Nature. 

Shall  I  grudge  simple  happiness  to  the  few,  because  it  is  as 
yet,  alas  I  impossible  for  the  many  ? 

And  yet  the  whole  scene  contrasted  so  painfully  with  me 
— with  my  past,  my  future,  my  dreams,  my  wrongs,  that  I 
could  not  look  at  it  ;  and  with  a  swelling  heart  I  moved  on 
— all  the  faster  because  I  saw  they  were  looking  at  me  and 
talking  of  me,  and  the  fair  wife  threw  after  me  a  wistful, 
pitying  glance,  which  I  was  afraid  might  develop  itself  inlo 


1 14        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Eome  offer  of  food  or  money — a  thing  which  I  scorned  ;ind 
dreaded,  because  it  involved  the  trouble  of  a  refusal. 

Then,  as  I  walked  on  once  more,  my  heart  smote  me.  If 
they  had  wished  to  be  kind,  why  had  I  grudged  them  the 
opportunity  of  a  good  deed  ?  At  all  events,  I  might  have 
asked  their  advice.  In  a  natural  and  harmonious  state,  when 
society  really  means  brotherhood,  a  man  couid  go  up  to  any 
stranger,  to  give  and  receive,  if  not  succor,  yet  still  experience 
and  wisdom  :  and  was  I  not  bound  to  tell  them  what  I  knew  ? 
was  sure  that  they  did  not  know  ?  Was  I  not  bound  to 
preach  the  cause  of  my  class  wherever  I  went  ?  Here  were 
kindly  people  who,  for  aught  I  knew,  would  do  right  the 
moment  they  were  told  where  it  was  wanted  ;  if  there  was 
an  accursed  artificial  gulf  between  their  class  and  mine,  had 
I  any  right  to  complain  of  it,  as  long  as  I  helped  to  keep  it 
up  by  my  false  pride  and  surly  reserve?  No!  I  would  speak 
my  mind  henceforth — I  would  testify  of  what  I  saw  and 
knew  of  the  wrongs,  if  not  of  the  rights,  of  the  artisan,  before 
whomsoever  I  might  come.  Oh  I  valiant  conclusion  of  half 
an  houi-'s  self-tormenting  scruples !  How  I  kept  it,  remains 
to  be  shown. 

I  really  fear  that  I  am  getting  somewhat  trivial  and  pro 
lix  :  but  there  was  hardly  an  incident  in  my  two  days'  tramp 
which  did  not  give  me  some  small  fresh  insight  into  the  ten'a 
incognita  of  the  country  ;  and  there  may  be  those  among  my 
readers,  to  whom  it  is  not  uninteresting  to  look,  for  once,  at 
even  the  smallest  objects  with  a  cockney  workman's  eyes. 

Well,  I  trudged  on — and  the  shadows  lengthened,  and  I 
grew  footsore  and  tired  ;  but  every  step  was  new,  and  won 
me  forward  with  fresh  excitements  for  my  curiosity. 

At  one  village  I  met  a  crowd  of  little,  noisy,  happy  boys 
and  girls  pouring  out  of  a  smart  new  Gothic  school-house.  1 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  snatching  a  glance  througl" 
the  open  door.  I  saw  on  the  walls  maps,  music  charts,  an(S 
pictures.  How  I  envied  those  little  urchins  !  A  solemn 
sturdy  elder,  in  a  while  cravat,  evidently  the  parson  of  the 
parish,  was  patting  children's  heads,  taking  down  names,  and 
laying  down  the  law  to  a  shrewd,  prim  young  schoolmaster. 

Presently,  as  I  went  up  the  village,  the  clergyman  strode 
past  me,  brandishing  a  thick  stick  and  humming  a  chant, 
and  joined  a  motherly-looking  wife,  who,  basket  on  arm,  was 
popping  in  and  out  of  the  cottages,  looking  alternately  serious 
and  funny,  cross  and  kindly — I  suppose,  according  to  the  say- 
ings and  doings  of  '.he  folks  within. 


ALTON  LOCKE   TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  115 

"  Conif,"  I  ihouffht,  "this  looks  like  work  at  least."  And 
as  I  went  ont  of  the  village,  I  accosted  a  laborer,  who  was 
trudging  my  way,  fork  on  shoulder,  and  asked  him  if  that 
was  the  parson  and  his  wife'? 

I  was  surprised  at  the  dilficulty  with  which  I  got  into  con- 
versation with  the  man  ;  at  his  stupidity,  i'eigned  or  real,  I 
could  not  tell  which ;  at  the  dogged,  suspicious  reserve  with 
which  he  eyed  me,  and  asked  me  whether  I  was  "  one  of 
thae  parts?"  and  whether  I  was  a  Londoner,  and  what  I 
wanted  on  the  tramp,  and  so  on,  before  he  seemed  to  think  it 
safe  to  answer  a  single  question.  He  seemed,  like  almost 
every  laborer  I  ever  met,  to  have  something  on  his  mind  ;  to 
live  in  a  state  of  perpetual  fear  and  concealment.  When, 
hoM'ever,  he  found  I  M'as  both  a  cockney  and  a  passer-by,  he 
bef^an  to  grow  more  communicative,  and  told  me,  "  Ees — 
that  were  the  parson,  sure  enough." 
"  And  what  sort  of  man  was  he  V 

"  Oh  I  he  was  a  main  kind  man  to  the  poor ;  leastwise  in 
the  matter  of  visiting  'em,  and  praying  with  'em,  and  getting 
'em  to  put  into  clubs,  and  such  like  ;  and  his  lady  too.  Not 
that  there  was  any  fault  to  find  with  the  man  about  money 
— but  'twasn't  to  be  expected  of  him." 
"  Why,  was  he  not  rich  ?" 

'■'  Oh,  rich  enough  to  the  likes  of  us.  But  his  own  tithe? 
hv.ti  arn't  more  than  a  thirty  pounds,  we  hears  tell ;  and  if 
he  d  hadn't  summat  of  his  own,  he  couldn't  do  not  nothing 
by  the  poor  ;  as  it  be,  he  pays  for  that  ere  school  all  to  his 
own  pocket,  next  part.  All  the  rest  o'  the  tithes  goes  to 
some  great  lord  or  other — they  say  he  draws  a  matter  of  a 
thousand  a  year  out  of  the  parish,  and  not  a  foot  ever  he  sot 
into  it ;  and  that's  the  way  with  a  main  lot  o'  parishes,  up 
and  down." 

This  was  quite  a  new  fact  to  me.  "  And  what  sort  of 
Jblks  were  the  parsons  all  round?" 

"  Oh,  some  of  all  sorts,  good  and  bad.  About  six  and  a 
half-a-dozen.  There's  two  or  three  nice  young  gentlemen 
come'd  round  here  now,  but  they're  all  what's-'em-a-call-it  ? 
— some  sort  o'  papishes  ; — leastwise,  they  has  prayers  in  the 
church  every  day,  and  doesn't  preach  the  Gospel,  no  how,  I 
hears  by  my  wile,  and  she  knows  all  about  it,  along  of  going 
to  meeting.  Then  there's  one  over  thereaway,  as  had  to 
leave  his  living — he  knows  why.     He  got  safe  over  seas.     If 

he  had  been  a  poor  man,  he'd  a  been  in jail,  safe  enough, 

and  soon  enough.     Then  there's  two  or  three  as  goes  a-hunt« 


J16        ALTON  LOCKK  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

ing — not  as  I  sees  no  harm  in  lliat  ;  if  a  man's  got  plenty  of 
money,  he  ought  to  enjoy  himself,  in  course :  but  still  he  can't 
be  here  and  there  too,  to  once.  Then  there's  two  or  three  as 
is  bad  in  their  healths,  or  thinks  themselves  so — or  else  has 
livings  summer'  else  ;  and  they  lives  summer'  or  others,  and 
has  curates.  Main  busy  chaps  is  thae  curates,  always,  and 
M-onderful  hands  to  preach  ;  but  then,  just  as  they  gets  a  little 
ivnowing  like  at  it,  and  folks  gets  to  like  'em,  and  run  to  hear 
'em,  ofl'  they  pops  to  summat  better  ;  and  in  course  they're 
right  to  do  so  ;  and  so  we  country  folks  get  nought  but  the 
young  colts,  afore  they're  broke,  you  see." 

"  And  what  sort  of  a  preacher  was  his  parson  ?" 

"  Oh,  he  preached  very  good  Gospel.  Not  that  he  went 
very  often  hisself,  acause  he  couldn't  make  out  the  meaning 
of  it  ;  he  preached  too  high,  like.  But  his  wife  said  it  was 
uncommon  good  Gospel  ;  and  surely  when  he  come  to  visit  a 
body,  and  talked  plain  English,  like,  not  sermon-ways,  he 
Avas  a  very  pleasant  man  to  heer,  and  his  lady  uncommon 
kind  to  nurse  folk.  They  sot  up  with  me  and  my  Avife,  they 
two  did,  two  whole  nights,  when  we  was  in  the  fever,  afore 
the  officer  could  get  us  a  nurse." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "there  are  some  good  parsons  left." 

"  Oh,  yes;  there's  some  very  good  ones — each  one  after  his 
own  way  ;  and  there'd  be  more  on  'em,  if  they  did  but  know 
how  bad  we  laborers  was  off.  Why  bless  ye,  I  mind  when 
they  was  very  different.  A  new  parson  is  a  mighty  change 
for  the  better,  most  wise,  we  finds.  Wliy,  when  I  was  a  boy, 
we  never  had  no  schooling.  And  now  mine  goes  and  learns 
singing  and  jobrafy,  and  ciphering,  and  sich  like.  Not  that  I 
sees  no  good  in  it.  We  was  a  sight  better  off  in  the  old  times, 
when  there  weren't  no  schooling.  Schooling  harn  t  made 
wages  rise,  nor  preaching  neither." 

"But  surely,"  I  said,  "all  this  religious  knowledge  ought 
to  give  comfort,  even  if  you  are  badly  off." 

"  Oh !  religion's  all  very  well  for  them  as  has  time  for  it , 
and  a  very  good,  thing — we  ought  all  to  mind  our  latter  end. 
But  1  don't  seeJiow  a  man  can  hear  sermons  with  an  empty 
belly ;  and  there's  so  much  to  fret  a  man,  now,  and  he's  so 
cruel  tired  coming  home  o'  nights,  he  can't  nowise  go.  to  pray 
a  lot,  as  gentlefolks  does." 

"  But  are  you  so  ill  off?" 

"  Oh  I  he'd  had  a  good  harvesting  enough  ;  but  then  he 
owed  all  that  for  he's  rent ;  and  he's  club-money  was..'t  paio 
;ip,  nor  he's  shop.     And  then,  with  he's  wages — "  (    £--;^e» 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  117 

the  sum — under  tea  shillings),  "how  could  a  man  keep  his 
moulh  full,  wheu  he  had  five  children?  And  then,  folks  is 
so  unmarciful — I'll  just  tell  you  what  they  says  to  me,  now, 
last  time  I  was  over  at  the  board — " 

And  thereon  he  rambled  oli'into  a  long  jumble  of  medical- 
officers,  and  relieving  officers,  and  Farmer  This,  and  Squire 
That,  which  indicated  a  mind  as  ill-educated  as  discontented. 
He  cursed,  or  rather  grumbled  at — for  he  had  not  spirit,  it 
seemed,  to  curse  any  thing — the  New  Poor  Law;  because  it 
"  at<;  up  the  poor,  flesh  and  bone  ;" — bemoaned  the  "  Old 
Law,"  when  "  the  vestry  was  forced  to  give  a  man  what- 
somdever  he  axed  for,  and  if  they  didn't  he'd  go  to  the  magis- 
trates and  make  'em,  and  so  sure  as  a  man  got  a  fresh  child 
he  went  and  got  another  loaf  allowed  him  next  vestry,  like  a 
Christian  ;" — and  so  turned  through  a  gate,  and  set  to  work 
forking  up  some  weeds  on  a  fallow,  leaving  me  many  new 
thoughts  to  digest. 

That  night.  I  got  to  some  town  or  other,  and  there  founa  a 
night's  lodging,  good  enough  for  a  walking  traveler. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CAMBRIDGE. 

When  I  started  again  next  morning,  I  found  myself  so  stifl 
and  footsore,  that  I  could  hardly  put  one  leg  before  the  other, 
much  less  walk  upright.  I  was  really  quite  in  despair,  before 
the  end  of  the  first  mile;  for  I  had  no  money  to  pay  for  a  lift 
on  the  coach,  and  I  knew,  besides,  that  thuy  would  not  b< 
passing  that  way  for  several  hours  to  corne.  So,  with  achins 
back  and  knees,  I  made  shift  to  limp  along,  bent  almost  double 
and  ended  by  siting  down  for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  looking 
about  me,  in  a  country  which  would  have  seemed  drears 
enough,  I  suppose,  to  any  one  but  a  freshly-liberated  captive 
such  as  I  was.  At  last  I  got  up  and  limped  on,  stiffer  than 
ever  from  my  rest,  Avhen  a  gig  drove  past  me  toward  Cam- 
bridge, drawn  by  a  stout  cob,  and  driven  by  a  tall,  fat,  jolly- 
looking  farmer,  who  stared  at  me  as  he  parsed,  went  on,  look- 
ed back,  slackened  his  pace,  looked  back  again,  and  at  last 
came  to  a  dead  stop,  and  hailed  me  in  a  broad  nasal  dialect, 

"  Whor  be  ganging,  then,  boh  ]" 

"  To  Cambridge." 

"  Thew'st  na  git  there  that  gate.  B.e'est  thee  honest 
man  ?" 

"  I  hope  so,"'  said  I,  somewhat  indignantly. 

'•What's  trade  ?" 

"  A  tailor,"  I  said. 

"  Tailor  ' — guide  us  !  Tailor  a-tramp  ?  Barn't  accoos- 
tomed  to  tramp,  then  ?" 

"  I  never  was  out  of  London  before,"  said  I,  meekly  ;  for 
I  was  too  worn-out  to  be  cross — lengthy  and  impertinent  as 
this  cross-examination  seemed. 

"Oi'll  gie  thee  lift ;  dee  yoAV  jump  in.  Gae  on,  powney  I 
Tailor,  then  !     Oh  I  ah  I  tailor,"  saith  he. 

I  obeyed  most  thankfully,  and  sat  crouched  together,  look- 
ing up  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eyes  at  the  huge  tower  of  broad 
cloth  by  my  side,  and  comparing  the  two  red  shoulders  ot 
mutton  which  held  the  reins,  with  my  own  v/asted,  white, 
woman-like  fingers. 

I  iound  the  old  gentleman  most  inquisitive.  He  drew  out 
of  me  all  my  story — questioned  me  about  the  way  "  Lunnon 
folks"  lived,  and  whether  they  got  ony  shooting  or  "patteniug' 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET         m 

— whereby  I  found  he  meant  skating — and  broke  in,  every 
now  and  then,  with  ejaculations  of  childish  wonder,  and 
clumsy  sympathy,  on  my  accounts  of  London  labor  and  Lon- 
don misery. 

"  Oh,  father,  father  I — I  wonders  they  bears  it.  Us'n  in 
the  fens  wouldn't  stand  that  likes.  They'd  roit,  and  roit, 
and  roit,  and  talc'  oot  the  duck-gunes  to  'un — they  would,  as 
they  did  fiveand-twenty  year  agone.  Never  to  goo  ayond  the 
housen  I — never  to  goo  ayond  the  housen  I  Kill  me  in  a 
three  months,  that  Avould — bor',  then  I" 

"Are  you  a  farmer]"  I  asked,  at  last,  thinking  that  my 
turn  for  questioning  was  come. 

"  I  bean't  varmer;  I  be  yooman  born.  Never  paid  rent  in 
moy  life,  nor  never  wool.  I  farms  my  own  land,  and  my 
vathers  avore  me,  this  ever  so  mony  hoondred  year.  I've 
got  the  swoord  of  'em  to  home,  and  the  helmet  that  they  fut 
with  into  the  wars,  then  when  they  chopped  oft'  the  king's 
head — what  was  the  name  of  um  ?" 

"  Charles  the  First  ?" 

"  Ees — that's  the  booy.  We  was  Parliament  side — true 
Britons  all  we  was,  down  into  the  fens,  and  Oliver  Cromwell, 
as  dug  Bot.?ham  lode,  to  the  head  of  us.  You  coom  down  to 
Metholl,  and  I'll  shaw  ye  a  country.  I'll  shaw  'ee  some'at 
like  bullocks  to  call,  and  some'at  like  a  field  o'  beans — I  wool, 
— none  o'  this  here  darned  ups  and  downs  o'  hills"  (though 
the  country  through  which  we  drove  was  flat  enough,  I  should 
have  thought,  to  please  any  one),  "to  shake  a  body's  victuals 
out  of  his  inw^ards — all  so  flat  as  a  barn's  floor,  for  vorty  mile 
on  end — there's  the  country  to  live  in  I — and  vour  sons — or 
was  vour  on  'em — every  one  on  'em  fifteen  stone  in  his  shoes, 
to  patten  again'  any  man  from  Whit'sea  Mere  to  Denver 
Sluice,  for  twenty  pounds  o'  gold  ;  and  there's  the  money  to 
lay  doAvn,  and  let  the  man  as  dare  cover  it,  down  with  his 
money,  and  on  wi'  his  pattens,  thirtecn-inch  runners,  down 
the  wind,  again'  ether  a  one  o'  the  bairns  I" 

And  he  jingled  in  his  pocket  a  heavy  bag  of  gold,  and 
•\\.nkcd,  and  chuckled,  and  then  suddenly  cheeking  himself, 
repeated  in  a  sad,  dubious  tone,  two  or  three  times,  "  vour  on 
'cm  there  was — vour  on  'em  there  was  ;"  and  relieved  his 
feelings,  by  springing  the  pony  into  a  canter  till  he  came  to  a 
public  house,  where  he  pulled  up,  called  for  a  pot  of  hot  ale, 
ind  indsted  on  treating  me.  I  assured  him  that  I  nevei 
drank  fermented  liquors. 

"  Aw  1    Eh  ?    How  can  yow  do  that  then  ?    Die  o'  oowd  i 


IQO  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

the  fen,  that  gate,  yow  would.  Love  ye  then  I  they  as  din- 
not  tak'  their  spirits  down  thor  tak'  their  pennord  o'  eleva- 
tion, then — women  folk  especial." 

"  What's  elevation  ?" 

"  Oh  I  ho  I  ho  I — yow  goo  into  druggist's  shop  o'  market 
day,  into  Cambridge,  and  you'll  see  the  little  boxes,  doozens 
and  doozens,  a'  ready  on  the  counter  ;  and  never  a  ven-man's 
wife  goo  by,  but  what  calls  in  for  her  pennord  o'  elevation,  to 
last  her  out  the  week.  Oh  I  ho  I  ho  I  Well,  it  keeps  wom- 
en-folk quiet,  it  do  ;   and  it's  mortal  good  agin  ago  pains." 

"  But  what  is  it  ?" 

"  Opium,  bor'  alive,  opium  !" 

"  But  doesn't  it  ruin  their  health  ]  I  should  think  it  the 
very  worst  sort  of  drunkenness." 

"Ow,  well,  yow  moi  say  that — mak'th  'em  cruel  thin  then, 
it  do  ;  but  what  can  bodies  do  i'  th'  ago  ?  Bot  it's  a  bad 
thing,  it  is.  Harken  yow  to  me.  Did'st  ever  know  one  call- 
ed Porter,  to  yowr  trade  ]" 

I  thought  a  little,  and  recollccled  a  man  of  that  name,  who 
had  worked  with  us  a  year  or  two  before — a  great  friend  of  a 
certain  scatter-brained  Irish  lad,  brother  of  Crossthwaite's  wife. 

"  Well,  I  did  once,  but  I  have  lost  sight  of  him  twelve 
months,  or  more." 

The  old  man  faced  sharp  round  on  me,  swinging  the  little 
gig  almost  over,  and  then  twisted  himself  back  again,  and 
put  on  a  true  farmer-like  look  of  dogged,  stolid  reserve.  We 
rode  on  a  few  minutes  in  silence. 

"  Dee  yow  consider,  now,  that  a  mon  mought  be  lost,  like, 
into  Lunnon  ?" 

"  How  lost  ?" 

"  Why,  yow  told  o'  thae  sweaters — dee  yow  think  a  mon 
might  get  in  wi'  one  o'  they,  and  they  that  mought  be  looking 
vor  un  not  to  find  un  ?" 

"  I  do,  indeed.  There  was  a  friend  of  that  man  Porter 
got  turned  away  from  our  shop,  because  he  wouldn't  pay  some 
tyrannical  fine  for  being  saucy,  as  they  called  it,  to  the  shop- 
man ;  and  he  went  to  a  sweater's — and  then  to  another  ; 
and  his  friends  have  been  tracking  him  up  and  down  this  six 
months,  and  can  hear  no  news  of  him." 

"  A.V/  I  guide  us  I  And  what'n  think  yow,  be  gone  wi' 
un : 

"  I  am  afraid  he  has  got  into  one  of  those  dens,  and  has 
pawned  his  clothes,  as  dozens  of  them  do,  for  food,  and  so 
can't  get  out." 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AM)   I'OLT.  121 

"  Pawned  bis  clothes  for  victuals  !  To  think  o'  that,  rioo  I 
But  if  he  had  work,  can't  he  get  victuals  ?" 

"Oil!"  I  said,  "there's  many  a  man  who,  after  working 
seventeen  or  eighteen  hours  a  day,  Sundays  and  all,  without 
livca  time  to  take  off  his  clothes,  finds  himself  brought  in 
debt  to  his  tyrant  at  the  week's  end.  And  if  he  gets  no 
work,  the  villain  won't  let  him  leave  the  house  ;  he  has  to 
stay  there  starving,  on  the  chance  of  an  hour's  job.  I  tell 
you,  I've  known  hall-a-dozcn  men  imprisoned  in  that  way,  in 
a  little  dungeon  of  a  garret,  where  they  had  hardly  room  to 
stand  upright,  and  only  just  space  to  sit  and  work  between 
their  beds,  without  breathing  the  fresh  air,  or  seeing  God's 
sun,  for  months  together,  with  no  victuals  but  a  few  slices  of 
bread-and-butter,  and  a  little  slop  of  tea,  twice  a  day,  till 
they  were  starved  to  the  very  bone." 

"  Oh,  my  God  I  my  God  I"  said  the  old  man,  in  a  voice 
which  had  a  deeper  tone  of  feeling  than  more  sympathy  with 
others'  sorrow  was  likely  to  have  produced.  There  Avas  evi- 
dently something  behhid  all  these  inquiries  of  his.  I  longed 
to  ask  him  if  his  name,  too,  was  not  Porter. 

"  Aw  yow  knawn  Billy  Porter]  What  was  a  like  ?  Tell 
me,  now — what  was  a  like,  in  the  Lord's  name  I  what  was 
a  like  unto  ?" 

"Very  tall  and  bony,"  I  answered. 

"All!  sax  feet,  and  more?  and  a  yard  across? — but  a  was 
Btarved,  a  was  a'  thin,  though,  maybe,  when  yow  sawn  nn  ? 
— and  beautiful  fine  hair,  hadn't  a,  like  a  lass's?" 

"  The  man  I  knew  had  red  hair,"  quoth  I. 

"Ow,  ay,  an'  that  it  wor,  red  as  a  rising  sun,  and  the  curls 
of  un  like  gowlden  guineas  I  And  thou  knew'st  Billy  Porter  ! 
To  think  o'  that,  noo — " 

Another  long  silence. 

"Could  you  find  un,  dec  yow  think,  noo,  into  Lunnon  ? 
Suppose,  now,  there  was  a  mon  'ud  gie — may  be  five  pund — 

ten  pund — twenty  pund,  by  twenty  pund  down,  for  to 

ha'  him  brocht  home  safe  and  soun' — could  yow  do't,  bor'  ?  I 
zay,  could  yow  do't  ?" 

"  I  could  do  it  as  well  without  the  money  as  with,  if  I  could 
do  it  at  all.     But  have  you  no  guess  as  to  where  he  is  ?" 

lie  shook  his  head  sadly. 

"  We — that's  to  zay,  they  as  wants  un — havn't  heerd  tell 
of  un  vor  this  three  year — three  year  come  Whitsuntide  as 
ever  was — " 

And  he  wiped  his  eyes  with  his  cuff.  \ 

F 


122  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"If  you  will  tell  mc  all  about  him,  and  where  he  was  last 
heard  of,  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  find  him." 

"  Will  ye,  noo  ?  will  ye  ]  The  Lord  bless  ye  for  zaying 
that" — and  he  grasped  my  hand  in  his  great  iron  fist,  and 
fairly  burst  out  crying. 

"  Was  he  a  relation  of  yours  V  I  asked,  gently 
"My  bairn — my  bairn — my  eldest  bairn.     Dinnot  yow  ax 
me  no  moor — dinnot  then,  bor'.     Gie  on,  yow  powney,  anct 
yow  goo  leuk  vor  im." 
Another  long  silence. 

"  I've  a  been  to  Lunnon,  looking  vor  un." 
Another  silence. 

"  I  went  up  and  dowii,  up  and  down,  day  and  night,  day 
and  night,  to  all  pot-houses  as  I  could  zee  ;  vor,  says  I,  he  was 
a' ways  a  main  chap  to  drink,  he  Avas.  Oh,  deery  me  I  and  1 
never  cot  zight  on  un — and  noo  I  be  most  spent,  I  be — " 

And  he  pulled  up  at  another  public-house,  and  tried  this 
time  a  glass  of  brandy.  He  stopped,  I  really  think,  at  every 
iini  between  that  place  and  Cambridge,  and  at  each  tried 
some  fresh  compound  ;  but  his  head  seemed,  from  habit,  utter- 
ly fire-proof. 

At  last,  we  neared  Cambridge,  and  began  to  pass  groups  of 
gay  horsemen,  and  then  those  strange  caps  and  gowns — ugly 
ind  unmeaning  remnant  of  obsolete  fashion. 

The  old  man  insisted  on  driving  me  up  to  the  gate  of  Trinity, 
and  there  dropped  me,  after  I  had  given  him  my  address,  en- 
treating me  to  "vind  the  bairn,  and  coom  to  zee  him  down  to 
Metholl.  But  dinnot  goo  ax  for  Farmer  Porter — they's  all 
Porters  there  away.  Yow  ax  for  Wooden-house  Bob — that's 
me  ;  and  if  I  barn't  to  home,  ax  for  Mucky  Billy — that's  my 
brawthcr — we're  all  gotten  our  names  down  to  ven  ;  and  if 
he  barn't  to  home,  yow  ax  for  Frog-hall — that's  where  my 
sister  do  live  ;  and  they'll  all  veed  ye,  and  lodge  ye,  and  wel- 
come come.  We  be  all  like  one,  doon  in  the  ven ;  and  do  ye, 
do  ye  vind  my  bairn  I"  And  he  trundled  on,  down  the  nar- 
row street. 

I  was  soon  directed,  by  various  smart-looking  servants,  to 
my  cousin's  rooms ;  and  after  a  lew  mistakes,  and  wandering 
up  and  down  noble  courts  and  cloisters,  swarming  with  gay 
young  men,  whose  jaunty  air  and  dress  seemed  strangely  out 
of  keeping  with  the  stern,  antique  solemnity  of  the  Gothic 
buildings  around,  I  espied  my  cousin's  name  over  a  door;  and, 
uncertain  how  he  might  receive  me,  I  gave  a  gentle,  half- 
apologetic  knock,  which  was  answered  by  a  loud  "  Come  in  I" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  123 

and  I  entered  oil  a  soene,  even  more  incongruous  than  auj 
thing  I  had  seen  outside. 

'-'  II"  we  can  only  keep  away  from  that  d — d  Jesus  as  far  as 
the  corner,  I  don't  care." 

"If  we  don't  run  into  that  first  Trinity  before  the  willov/s, 
I  shall  care  with  a  vengeance." 

"  If  we  don't,  it's  a  pity,"  said  my  cousin.  "  Wadham  ran 
up  by  the  side  of  that  first  Trinity  yesterday,  and  he  said  that 
they  were  as  well  gruelcd  as  so  many  posters,  before  they  got 
to  the  stile." 

This  unintelligible,  and,  to  my  inexperienced  ears,  blas- 
phemous conversation,  proceeded  li-om  halfa-dozen  powerful 
young  men,  in  low-crowned  sailors'  hats  and  flannel  trowsers, 
some  in  striped  jersej-s,  some  in  shooting-jackets,  some  smoking 
cigars,  some  beating  up  eggs  in  sherry ;  while  my  cousin, 
dressed  like  "a  fancy  waterman,"  sat  on  the  back  of  a  solii, 
[tufling  away  a  huge  meerschaum. 

"  Alton  I  Avhy,  what  wind  on  earth  has  blown  you  here  ]" 

By  the  tone,  the  words  seemed  rather  an  inquiry  as  to  what 
wind  would  be  kind  enough  to  blow  me  back  again.  But  he 
recovered  his  self-possession  in  a  moment. 

'=  Delighted  to  see  you  I  Where's  your  portmanleau  ?  Oh 
—left  it  at  the  Bull!  Ah  1  I  see.  Very  well,  we'll  send  the 
gyp  for  it  ill  a  minute,  and  order  som^  luncheon.  We're  just 
going  down  to  the  boat-race.  Sorry  I  can't  stop,  but  we 
shall  all  be  fined — not  a  moment  to  lose.  I'll  send  you  in 
luncheon  as  I  go  through  the  butteries  ;  then,  perhaps,  you'd 
like  to  come  down  and  see  the  race.  Ask  the  gyp  to  tell 
you  the  way.  Now,  then,  follow  your  noble  captain,  gentle- 
men— to  glory  and  a  supper."  And  he  bustled  out  with  his 
crew. 

While  I  was  staring  about  the  room,  at  the  jumble  of 
Greek  books,  boxing-gloves,  and  luscious  prints  of  pretty 
women,  a  shrewd-faced,  smart  man  entered,  much  better 
dres.sed  than  myself 

"What  would  you  like,  sir?  Ox-tail  soup,  sir,  or  grav)-- 
soup,  sir  ?  Stilton  cheese,  sir,  or  Cheshire,  sir  ?  Old  Stilton, 
sir,  just  now." 

Fearing  lest  many  words  might  betray  my  rank — and., 
strange  to  say,  though  I  should  not  have  been  afraid  of  con 
fessing  myself  an  artisan  before  the  "gentlemen"  who  had 
just  left  the  room,  I  was  ashamed  to  have  my  low  estate  dis- 
covered, and  talked  over  wdth  his  compeers,  by  the  flunky 
who  waited   on   them — I    answered,  "  Any  thing~I   really 


im  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

don't  care,"  in  as  aristocratic  and  off-hand  a  tone  as  I  could 
assume. 

"  Porter  or  ale,  sir  ]" 

"Water,"  without  a  "thank  you,"  I  am  ashamed  to  say, 
for  I  was  not  at  that  time  quite  sure  whether  it  was  well-bred 
to  be  civil  to  servants. 

The  man  vanished,  and  re-appeared  with  a  savory  luncheon, 
silver  forks,  snowy  napkins,  smart  plates —  I  felt  really  qnito 
a  gentleman. 

He  gave  me  full  directions  as  to  my  "  way  to  the  boats, 
sir  ;"  and  I  started  out  much  refreshed  ;  passed  through  back 
streets,  dingy,  dirty,  and  profligate-looking  enough  ;  out  upon 
wide  meadows,  fringed  Mith  enormous  elms  ;  across  a  ferry  ; 
through  a  pleasant  village,  with  its  old  gray  church  and  spire ; 
by  the  side  of  a  sluggish  river,  alive  with  Avherries  ;  along  a 
towing-path  sv/armiug  with  bold,  bedizened  M'omen,  who  jested 
with  the  rowers — of  their  prolession,  alas  I  there  could  bo  no 
doubt.  I  had  walked  down  some  mile  or  so,  and  just  as  I 
heard  a  cannon,  as  I  thought,  fire  at  some  distance,  and 
wondered  at  its  meaning,  I  came  to  a  sudden  bend  of  the 
river,  with  a  church-tower  hanging  over  the  stream  on  the 
opposite  bank,  a  knot  of  tall  poplars,  weeping  willows,  rich 
lawns,  sloping  down  1o  the  water's  side,  gay  with  hornets 
and  shawls ;  Avhile,  alpng  the  edge  of  the  stream,  light, 
gaudily-painted  boats  apparently  waited  for  the  race,  altogeth- 
er the  most  brilliant  and  graceful  group  of  scenery  Avhich  I 
had  beheld  in  my  little  travels.  I  stopped  to  gaze ;  and 
among  the  ladies  on  the  lawn  opposite,  caught  sight  of  a 
/igure — my  heart  leapt  into  my  mouth  I  Was  it  she  at  last  ? 
It  was  too  far  to  distinguish  features  ;  the  dress  was  altogether 
diflerent — but  was  it  not  she  ?  I  saw  her  move  across  the 
lawn,  and  take  the  arm  of  a  tall,  venerable  looking  man ; 
and  his  dress  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  dean,  at  the  Dul- 
wich  Gallery — was  it?  was  it  not?  To  have  found  her, 
and  a  river  between  us  '  It  was  ludicrously  miserable — 
miserably  ludicrous.  Oh,  that  accursed  river,  which  debarred 
me  from  certainty,  from  bliss  I  I  would  have  plunged  across 
— but  there  Avere  three  objections — first,  that  I  could  not 
aw'nn  ;  next,  what  could  I  do  Avhen  I  had  crossed  ?  and 
thirdly,  it  might  not  be  she,  after  all. 

xind  yet  I  was  certain — instinctively  certain — that  it  was 
she,  the  idol  of  my  imagination  for  years.  If  I  could  not  see 
her  features  under  that  little  white  bonnet,  I  could  imagine 
them  there;  they  flashed  up  in  my  memory  as  fresh  as  evei 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  To:;    .  J25 

Did  she  remember  my  features,  as  I  did  hers  1  Would  she 
know  me  again  ?  Had  she  ever  even  thought  of"  me,  from 
that  day  to  this  ?  Fool  I  But  there  I  stood,  fascinated, 
gazing  across  the  river,  heedless  of  the  racing-boats,  and  the 
crowd,  and  the  roar  that  was  rushing  up  to  me  at  the  rate 
of  ten  miles  an  hour,  and,  in  a  moment  more,  had  caught  me, 
and  swept  me  away  with  it,  whether  1  would  or  not,  along 
the  towing-path,  by  the  side  of  the  foremost  boats. 

Oh,  the  Babel  ol  horse  and  foot,  young  and  old  I  the  cheer- 
ing, and  the  exhorting,  and  the  objurgations  of  number  this, 
and  number  that  I  and  the  yelling  of  the  most  sacred  names, 
intermingled  too  often  with  oaths.  And  yet,  after  a  few 
moments,  I  ceased  to  Avonder  either  at  the  Cambridge  passion 
for  boat- racing,  or  at  the  excitement  of  the  spectators.  "  IIo)u 
soil  qui  mat  y peine''  It  was  a  noble  sport — a  sight  such 
as  could  only  be  seen  in  England — some  hundred  of  young 
men,  who  might,  if  they  had  chosen,  been  lounging  effemi- 
nately about  the  streets,  subjecting  themselves  voluntarily  to 
that  intense  exertion,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  toil.  The  true 
English  stuff"  came  out  there  ;  I  felt  that,  in  spite  of  all  my 
prejudices — the  stuff"  which  has  held  Gibraltar  and  conquered 
at  Waterloo — which  has  created  a  Birmingham  and  a  Man- 
chester, and  colonized  every  quarter  of  the  globe — that  grim, 
earnest,  stubborn  energy,  Avhich,  since  the  days  of  the  old 
Romans,  the  English  possess  alone  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  I  was  as  proud  of  the  gallant  young  fellows,  as  if 
they  had  been  my  brothers — of  their  courage  and  endurance 
(for  one  could  see  that  it  was  no  child's-play,  from  the  pale 
fiices  and  panting  lips),  their  strength  and  activity,  so  fierce 
and  yet  so  cultivated,  smooth,  harmonious,  as  oar  kept  tim.e 
with  oar,  and  every  back  rose  and  fell  in  concert — and  felt 
my  soul  stirred  up  to  a  sort  of  svreet  madness,  not  merely  by 
ihe  shouts  and  cheers  of  the  mob  around  me,  but  by  the  loud, 
fierce  pulse  of  the  rowlocks,  the  swift  whispering  rush  of  the 
long,  snake-like  eight  oars,  the  swirl  and  gurgle  of  the  v.-ater 
in  their  wake,  the  grim,  breathless  silence  of  the  straining 
rowers.  My  blood  boiled  over,  and  fierce  tears  swelled  into 
ray  eyes ;  for  I,  too,  was  a  man,  and  an  Englishman  ;  and 
when  I  caught  sight  of  my  cousin,  pulling  stroke  to  thii 
second  boat  in  the  long  line,  with  set  teeth  and  flashing  eyes, 
the  great  muscles  on  his  bare  arms  springing  up  into  kiiols 
at  every  rapid  stroke,  I  ran  and  shouted  among  the  maddest 
and  the  foremost. 

But  I  soon  tired,  and,  footsore  as  I  was,  began  to  find  ui.\ 


126  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

strength  .liil  me.  I  tried  lo  drop  behind,  but  found  it  impo.s- 
sible  in  the  press.  At  last,  quite  out  of  breath,  I  stopped  ; 
and  instantly  received  a  heavy  blow  from  behind,  which 
threw  me  on  my  face.  I  looked  up,  and  saw  a  huge  long- 
legged  gray  horse,  with  his  knees  upon  my  back,  in  the  act 
of  falling  over  me.  His  rider,  a  little  Itrret-visaged  boy, 
dressed  in  sporting  style,  threw  himself  back  in  the  saddle, 
and  recovered  the  horse  in  an  instant,  with  a  curse  at  me,  as 
I  rolled  down  the  steep  bank  into  the  river,  among  the  laugh- 
ter and  shouts  of  the  women,  who  seemed  to  think  it  quite  a 
grand  act  on  the  part  of  the  horseman. 

"  Well  saved,  upon  my  word,  my  lord  I"  shouted  out  a  rider 
beside  him. 

"  Confound  the  snob  I  —  I'm  glad  he  got  his  ducking. 
What  do  the  fellows  want  here,  getting  in  a  gentleman's 
way  ?" 

'■  For  shame,  Swindon  I  the  man  is  hurt,"  said  another 
rider,  a  very  tall  and  handsome  man,  v.'ho  pulled  up  his  horse, 
and,  letting  the  crowd  pass,  sprang  ofl^to  my  assistance. 

"  Leave  him  alone,  Lord  Lynedale,"  said  one  of  the  wo- 
men ;  "let  him  go  home  and  ask  his  mammy  to  hang  bin) 
out  to  dry." 

"  Why  do  you  bother  yourself  with  such  mufls  ?"  etc.,  &c  , 
&c. 

But  I  had  scrambled  out,  and  stood  there  dripping,  and 
shaking  M'ith  rage  and  pain. 

"I  hope  you  are  not  much  luirt,  my  man?"  asked  the 
nobleman,  in  a  truly  gentlemanlike,  bee.mse  truly  gentle, 
voice  ;  and  he  pulled  out  half-a-crown,  and  oflered  it  to  me, 
saying,  "  I  am  quite  ashamed  to  see  one  of  my  own  rank 
behave  in  a  way  so  unworthy  of  it." 

But  I,  in  my  shame  and  passion,  thrust  back  at  once  the 
coin  and  the  civility. 

"  I  want  neither  you  nor  your  money,"  said  I,  limping  ofi' 
down  the  bank.  "  It  serves  me  right,  lor  getting  among  you 
cursed  aristocrats." 

IIow  the  nobleman  took  my  answer  I  did  not  stay  to  see, 
for  I  was  glad  to  escape  the  jeers  of  the  bystanding  black- 
jruards,  male  and  female,  by  scrambliiig  over  the  fences,  and 
inaking  my  way  acrcss  the  fields  back  to  Cambridge. 

r 


*     CHAPTEPw  XIII. 

THE  LOST  IDOL  FOUND. 

O.;  my  return,  I  found  my  coiisin  already  at  home,  in  high 
epirils  at  having,  as  he  informed  me,  "  bumped  tlie  first  Trin- 
ity." I  excused  myself  for  my  dripping  state,  simply  by  say- 
ing that  I  had  slipped  into  tlie  river.  To  tell  him  the  whole 
of  the  story,  "while  the  insult  still  rankled  I'resh  in  me,  was 
really  too  disagreeable  both  to  my  memory  and  my  pride. 

"Then  came  the  question,  "What  had  brought  me  to 
Cambridge  ?"  I  told  him  all,  and  he  seemed  honestly  to 
sympathize  with  my  misfortunes. 

"  Never  mind  ;  we'll  make  it  all  right  somehow.  Those 
poems  of  yours — you  must  let  me  have  them  and  look  over 
them  ;  and  I  daresay  I  shall  persuade  the  governor  to  do 
something  with  them.  After  all,  it's  no  loss  for  you  ;  you 
couldn't  have  gone  on  tailoring — much  too  sharp  a  fellow  Ibr 
that ;  yon  ought  to  be  at  college,  if  one  could  only  get  you 
there.  These  sizarships,  now,  were  meant  Ibr  just  such  cases 
as  yours — clever  fellows  who  could  not  afibrd  to  educate 
themselves  ;  but,  like  every  thing  in  the  university,  the  people 
for  whom  they  are  meant  never  get  them.  Do  you  know 
what  the  golden  canon  is,  Alton,  for  understanding  all  uni- 
versity questions?" 

"  No." 

"  Then  I'll  tell  you.  That  the  em2:)loyment  of  any  money 
whatsoever,  for  any  purpose  whatsoever,  is  a  certain  sign  that 
it  was  originally  meant  for  some  purpose  totally  different." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Oh  I  you  shall  stay  here  with  me  a  few  days,  and  you'll 
soon  find  out.  Ilush  I  now ;  don't  come  the  independent 
dodge.  One  cousin  may  visit  another,  I  hope,  without  con- 
tracting obligations,  and  all  that.  I'll  find  you  a  bedroom 
out  of  college,  and  you'll  live  in  my  rooms  all  day,  and  I'll 
show  you  a  thing  or  two.     How  do  you  like  the  university  V 

"  The  buildings,"  I  said,  "  strike  me  as  very  noble  and  rev- 
erent." 

"  They  are  the  only  noble  and  reverent  things  you'll  find    1 
here,  I  can  tell  you.     It's  a  system  of  humbug,  Irora  one  end 
to  the  other.     But  the  Dons  get  their  living  by  it,  and  their 
livings  too,  and  their  bishopricks,  now  and  then  ;  and  I  intend 


128  ALTON  LOCKE,  'lAILOR  AND  PolCT. 

to  do  the  same,  if  I  have  a  chance.  Do  at  E.ome  as  Rome 
does."     And  he  hghtcd  his  pipe  and  winked  knowingly  at  rne. 

I  mentioned  the  profane  use  of  sacred  names  which  had  so 
disgusted  me  at  the  boat-race      lie  laughed. 

"Ah  I  my  dear  fellow,  it's  a  very  fair  specimen  of  Cam- 
bridge— shows  what's  the  matter  with  us  all — putting  new 
wine  into  old  bottles,  and  into  young  bottles,  too,  as  you'll 
see  at  my  supper  party  to-night." 

"Really,"  1  said,  "I  am  not  fit  for  presentation  at  any 
such  aristocratic  amusements." 

"  Oh  I  I'll  lend  you  clothes  till  your  own  are  dried ;  and  as 
for  behavior,  hold  your  tongue,  and  don't  put  your  knife  in 
your  mouth,  are  quite  rules  enough  to  get  any  man  mistaken 
for  a  gentleman  here."  And  he  laughed  again  in  his  peculiar 
sneering  \vay. 

"  By-the-by,  don't  get  drunk  ;  for  in  vino  Veritas.  You 
know  what  that  means." 

"  So  well,"  I  answered,  "  that  I  never  iutend  to  touch  a 
drop  of  fermented  liquor." 

"  Capital  rule  for  a  poor  man.  I've  got  a  strong  head, 
luckily.  If  I  hadn't,  I  should  keep  sober  on  principle.  It's 
great  fun  to  have  a  man  taking  you  into  his  confidence  after 
the  second  bottle  ;  and  then  to  see  the  funk  he's  in  next  day, 
when  he  recollects  he's  shown  you  more  of  his  hand  than  is 
good  for  his  own  game." 

All  this  sickened  rne ;  and  I  tried  to  turn  the  conversation, 
by  asking  him  what  he  meant  by  new  wine  in  old  bottles. 

"  Can't  you  see  1  The  whole  is  monastic — dre.ss,  unmar- 
ried fellows,  the  very  names  of  the  colleges.  I  dare  say  it  did 
very  well  for  the  poor  scholars  in  the  middle  ages,  Avho,  three- 
fourths  of  them,  turned  either  monks  or  priests  ;  but  it  won't 
do  for  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  19th  century.  Those 
very  names  of  colleges  are  of  a  piece  with  the  rest.  The  col- 
leges were  dedicated  to  various  sacred  personages  and  saints, 
to  secure  their  interest  in  heaven  for  the  prosperity  of  the  col- 
lege ;  but  who  believes  in  all  that  now  ?  And  therefore  the 
names  remain  only  to  be  desecrated.  The  men  can't  help  it. 
They  must  call  the  colleges  by  their  names." 

"  Why  don't  they  alter  the  names  ?"   I  said. 

"  Because,  my  dear  fellow,  they  are  afraid  to  alter  any 
thing,  for  fear  of  bringing  the  whole  rotten  old  house  down 
about  their  cars.  They  say  themselves,  that  the  slightest 
innovation  will  be  a  precedent  for  destroying  the  whole  sys- 
tem, bit  by  bit.      Why  should  they  be  alraid  of  that,  if  they 


ALTOxN  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POLt.  129 

did  not  know  that  the  whole  system  would  not  bear  canvass- 
ing  an  instant  ?  That's  why  they  retain  statutes  that  can't 
be  observed  ;  because  they  know,  if  they  once  began  altering 
the  statutes  the  least,  the  Avorld  would  find  out  how  they 
have  themselves  been  breaking  the  statutes.  That's  why 
they  keep  up  the  farce  of  swearing  to  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles, 
and  all  that  ;  just  because  they  know,  if  they  attempted  to 
alter  the  letter  of  the  old  Ibrms,  it  would  come  out,  that  half 
the  young  men  of  the  university  don't  believe  three  words  of 
them  at  heart.  They  know  the  majority  of  us  are  at  heart 
neither  churchmen  nor  Christians,  nor  even  decent Iv  moral  : 
but  the  one  thing  they  arc  alraid  of  is  scandal.  So  they  con- 
nive at  the  young  men's  ill-doings  ;  they  take  no  real  steps  to 
put  down  profligacy  ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  they  just  keep 
up  the  forms  of  Church  of  Englandism,  and  pray  devoutly  that 
the  whole  humbug  may  last  out  their  time.  There  isn't  one 
Don  in  a  hundred  who  has  any  personal  influence  over  the 
gownsmen.  A  man  may  live  here  from  the  time  he's  a 
iVeshman,  to  the  time  he's  taken  his  degree,  without  evei 
being  spoken  to  as  if  ho  had  a  soul  to  be  saved  ;  unless  he 
happens  to  be  one  ol'  the  Simeonite  party  ;  and  they  are  get- 
ting fewer  and  fewer  every  year  ;  and  in  ten  years  more  there 
M'on't  be  one  of  them  left,  at  the  present  rate.  Besides,  they 
have  no  influence  ever  the  rest  of  tlie  under-graduates.  They 
are  very  good,  excellent  fellows  in  their  way,  I  do  believe  ; 
but  they  are  not  generally  men  of  talent ;  and  they  keep 
entirely  to  themselves  ;  and  know  nothing,  and  care  nothing 
lor  the  questions  of  the  day." 

And  so  he  rambled  on,  complaining  and  sneering,  till  sup- 
per time  ;  when  we  went  out  and  lounged  about  the  vener- 
able cloisters,  while  the  room  M'as  being  cleared  and  the 
cloth  laid. 

To  describe  a  Cambridge  supper  party  among  gay  young 
men  is  a  business  as  little  suited  to  my  taste  as  to  my  powers. 
The  higher  classes  ought  to  know  pretty  well  what  such 
things  are  like;  and  the  working-men  are  not  altogether 
ignorant,  seeing  that  Peter  Priggins  and  other  university  men 
have  been  turning  Alma  Mater's  shame  to  as  lucrative  ac- 
count in  their  fictions,  as  the  Irish  scribblers  have  that  of 
their  mother  country.  But  I  must  say,  that  I  was  utterly 
disgusted  ;  and  when,  after  the  removal  of  the  eatables,  the 
whole  party,  twelve  or  fourteen  in  number,  set  to  work  to 
drink  hard  and  deliberately  at  milk  punch,  and  bishop,  and 
copus,  and  grog,  and  I  know  not  what  other  inventions  of 


130  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOK  AND  POET. 

bacchanalian  luxury,  and  to  sing,  one  after  another,  songs  of 
the  most  brutal  indecency,  I  -was  glad  to  escape  into  the  cool 
night  air,  and  under  pretense  of  going  home,  wander  up  and 
down  the  King's  Parade,  and  watch  the  tall  gables  of  King's 
College  Chapel,  and  the  classic  front  of  the  Senate-house,  and 
the  stately  tower  of  St.  Mary's,  as  they  stood,  stern  and  silent, 
bathed  in  the  still  glory  of  the  moonshine,  and  seeming  to 
watch,  with  a  steadfast  sadness,  the  soene  of  frivolity  and  sin, 
Pharisaism,  formalism,  hypocrisy,  and  idleness  below. 

I       Noble  buildings  I  and  noble  institutions  I  given  freely  to  the 
people,  by  those  who  loved  the  people,  and  the  Saviour  v/ho 
died  for  them.     They  gave  us  what  they  had,  those  mediseval 
y   founders  :  whatsoever  narrowness  of  mind  or  superstition  de- 
filed their  gift  was  not  their  fault,  but  the  fault  of  their  whole 
age.     The  best  they  knew  they  imparted  freely,  and   God 
I  will  reward  them  for  it.     To  monopolize  those  institutions 
\  for  the  rich,  as  is  done  now,  is  to  violate  both  the  spirit  and 
I  the  letter  of  the  foundations;  to  restrict  their  studies  to  the 
limits  of  middle- age  Romanism,*  their  conditions  of  admission 
to  those  fixed  at  the  Reformation,  is  but  a  shade  less  wrong- 
ful.    The  letter  is  kept — the  spirit  is  thrown  away.     You 
Ire  fuse  to  admit  any  who  are  not  members  of  the  Church  of 
IJEngland  ;  say,  rather,  any  who  will  not  sign  the  dogmas  of 
ILhe  Church  of  England,  whether  they  believe  a  word  of  them 
)r  not.     Useless  formalism  I  which  lets  through  the  reckless, 
the  profligate,  the  ignorant,  the  hypocritical ;  and  only  ex- 
sludes  the  honest  and  the  conscientious,  and  the  mass  of  the 
l^ntellectual  Avorking-men.     And  whose  fault  is  it  that  they 
are  not  members  of  the  Church  of  England  ?     Whose  fault 
is  it,  I  askl     Your  predecessors  neglected  the  lower  orders, 
till  they  have  ceased  to  reverence  either  you  or  your  doctrines  ; 
you    confess   that,    among    yourselves,   freely   enough.       You 
throw  the  blame  of  the   present  wide-spread  dislike  to  the 
Church  of  England  on  her  sins  during  "  the  godless  18th  cen- 
tury."    Be  it  so.     Why  are  those  sins  to  be  visited  on  us  ? 
Why  are  we  to  be  shut  out  from  the  universities,  which  were 
founded  for  us,  because  you  have  let  us  grow  up,  by  millions, 
heathens   and  infidels,   as  you   call  us  1     Take   away  your 

*  This,  like  the  rest  of  Mr.  Locke's  Cambridge  reminiscences  may 
appear  to  many  exaggerated  and  unfair.  But  he  seems  to  be  speakino- 
of  both  universities,  and  at  a  time  when  they  had  not  even  commenced 
the  process  of  reformation.  We  fear,  however,  that  in  spile  of  many 
lioble  exceptions,  his  picture  of  Cambridge  represents,  if  not  the  whole 
truth,  still  the  impression  which  slie  leaves  on  the  minds  of  too  many, 
ftraiifjers  and,  alas!  students  also. —  En. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET.  131 

Bubterfuge !  It  is  not  merely  because  we  are  bad  church- 
men that  you  exclude  us,  else  you  would  be  crowding  your  col- 
leges, now,  with  the  talented  poor  of  the  agricultural  districts, 
who,  as  you  say,  remain  faithl'ul  to  the  church  of  their  fathers. 
But  are  there  six  laborers'  sons  educating  in  the  universities 
at  this  moment?  No  I  The  real  reason  for  our  exclusion, 
churchmen  or  not,  is  because  we  are  j^oor — because  we  can 
not  pay  your  exorbitant  fees,  often,  as  in  the  case  of  bachelors 
of  arts,  exacted  for  tuition  which  is  never  given,  and  residence 
which  is  not  permitted — because  we  could  not  support  the 
extravagance  which  you  not  only  permit,  but  encourage,  be- 
cause, by  your  own  unblushing  confession,  it  insures  the  uni- 
versity "the  snpj)ort  of  the  aristocracy." 

"  But,  on  religious  points,  at  least,  you  must  abide  by  the 
statutes  of  the  university." 

Strange  argument,  truly,  to  be  urged  literally  by  English 
Protestants  in  possession  of  E-oman  Catholic  bequests  I  If 
that  be  true  in  the  letter,  as  well  as  in  the  spirit,  you  should 
have  given  place  long  ago  to  the  Dominicans  and  the  Fran- 
ci.scans.  In  the  spirit  it  is  true,  and  the  Ileformers  acted  on 
it  when  they  rightly  converted  the  universities  to  the  uses  of 
the  new  faith.  They  carried  out  the  spirit  of  the  fou+iders' 
statutes  by  making  the  universities  as  good  as  they  could  be, 
and  letting  them  share  in  the  new  light  of  the  Elizabethan 
age.  But  was  the  sum  of  knowledge,  human  and  divine,  per- 
fected at  the  Pteformation  ?  Who  gave  the  Reformers,  or  you, 
who  call  yourselves  their  representatives,  a  right  to  say  to  the 
mind  of  man,  and  to  the  teaching  of  God's  Spirit,  "Hitherto, 
and  no  farther!"  Society  and  mankind,  the  children  of  the 
Supreme,  will  not  stop  growing  for  your  dogmas — much  less 
tor  your  vested  interests  ;  and  the  righteous  law  of  mingled 
development  and  renovation,  applied  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
must  be  re-applied  in  the  nineteenth  ;  while  the  spirits  of  tlie 
founders,  now  purged  from  the  superstitions  and  ignorances 
oi' their  age,  shall  smile  from  heaven,  and  say,  "So  woitjd  wo 
have  had  it,  if  we  had  lived  in  the  great  nineteenth  century, 
into  which  it  has  been  your  privilege  to  be  born." 

But  such  thoughts  soon  passed  away.  The  image  which  1 
had  seen  that  afternoon  upon  the  river-banks,  had  awakened 
imperiously  the  frantic  longings  of  past  years ;  and  now  it  re- 
ajcended  its  ancient  throne,  and  tyrannously  drove  forth  everv 
other  object,  to  !?eep  me  alone  with  its  own  tantalizing  and 
torturing  beauty.  I  did  not  think  about  her — No ;  1  only 
Stupidly  and  steadfastly  stared  at  her  with  my  whole  soul  and 


132  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

imagination,  through  that  long  sleepless  night ;  and  in  spite 
of  the  fatigue  of  my  journey,  and  the  stiffiiess  proceeding  from 
my  fall  and  wetting,  I  lay  tossing  till  the  early  sua  poured 
into  my  bedroom  window.  Then  I  arose,  dressed  myself,  and 
went  out  to  wander  up  and  down  the  streets,  gazing  at  one 
splendid  building  after  another,  till  I  found  the  gates  of  King's 
College  open.  I  entered  eagerly,  through  a  porch  which,  to 
my  untutored  taste,  seemed  gorgeous  enough  to  form  the  en- 
trance to  a  fairy  palace,  and  stood  in  the  quadrangle,  riveted 
to  the  spot  by  the  magnificence  of  the  huge  chapel  on  the 
right. 

If  I  had  admired  it  the  night  before,  I  felt  inclined  to  wor- 
ship it  this  morning,  as  I  saw  the  lofty  buttresses  and  spires, 
(retted  with  all  their  gorgeous  carving,  and  "  storied  windows 
richly  dight,"  sleeping  in  the  glare  of  the  newly  risen  sun,  and 
throwing  their  long  shadows  due  Avestward  down  the  sloping 
lawn,  and  across  the  river  which  dimpled  and  gleamed  below, 
till  it  was  lost  among  the  towering  masses  of  crisp  elms  and 
rose-garlanded  chestnuts  in  the  rich  gardens  beyond. 

Was  I  delighted]  Yes,  and  yet  no.  There  is  a  painful 
feelins'  in  seeing  any  thing  magnificent  which  one  can  not  un- 
derstand. And  perhaps  it  was  a  morbid  sensitiveness,  but 
the  feeling  was  strong  upon  me  that  I  was  an  interloper  there 
— out  of  harmony  with  the  scene  and  the  system  which  had 
created  it ;  that  I  might  be  an  object  of  unpleasant  curiosity, 
perhaps  of  scorn  (for  1  had  not  forgotten  the  nobleman  at  the 
boat-race),  amid  those  monuments  of  learned  luxury.  Per- 
haps, on  the  other  hand,  it  was  only  from  the  instinct  which 
makes  us  seek  for  solitude  under  the  pressure  of  inten,se  emo- 
tions, when  we  have  neither  language  to  express  them  to 
ourselves,  nor  loved  one  in  whose  silent  eyes  we  may  read 
kindred  feelings — a  sympathy  which  wants  no  words.  What- 
ever the  cause  was,  when  a  party  of  men,  in  their  caps  and 
gowns,  approached  me  down  the  dark  avenue  which  led  in  16 
the  country,  I  was  glad  to  shrjnk  for  concealment  behind  the 
Aveeping-willow  at  the  foot  of  the  bridge,  and  slink  off  unob- 
served to  breakfast  with  my  cousin. 

Wc  had  just  finished  breakfast,  my  cousin  was  lighting  his 
meerschaum,  when  a  tall  figure  passed  the  window,  and  the 
taller  of  the  noblemen,  Avhom  I  had  seen  at  the  boat-race, 
entered  the  room  with  a  packet  of  papers  in  his  hand. 

"Here,  Locule  mil  my  pocket-book — or  rather,  to  stretch 
B  bad  pun  till  it  bursts,  my  pocket  dictionary.  I  require  the 
aid  of  your  benevolently-squandered  talents  for  the  correction 


ALTON  I.OCKi:,  TAILOR  AM)  roi']T.  131 

of  these  proofs.  I  am,  as  usual,  both  idle  and  busy  this  morri' 
ing  ;  so  draw  pen,  and  set  to  work  for  me." 

"  I  am  exceedingly  sorry,  my  lord,"  answered  George,  in 
his  most  obsequious  tone,  "  but  I  m.nst  work  this  morning  with 
all  my  might.  Last  night,  recolitot,  was  given  to  triumph, 
Bacchus,  and  idleness." 

"  Then  find  some  one  who  will  do  them  for  me,  my  Ulysses 
jiolnmecliane,  polutrope,  panurge." 

"I  shall  be  most  happy  (with  a  half-frowu  and  a  wince), 
to  play  Panurge  to  your  lordship's  Pantagruel  on  board  the 
new  yacht." 

"Oh,  I  am  perfect  in  that  character,  I  suppose?  And  is 
she,  after  all,  like  Pantagruel's  ship  to  be  loaded  with  hemp  ? 
Well,  we  must  try  two  or  three  milder  cargoes  first.  But  come, 
find  me  some  starving  genius — some  grajculus  esuriens — " 

"  Who  will  ascend  to  the  heaven  of  your  lordship's  elo- 
quence for  the  bidding  V 

"Five  shillings  a  sheet — there  will  be  about  two  of  them,  1 
think,  in  the  pamphlet." 

"  May  I  take  the  liberty  of  recommending  ray  cousin  here  ?" 

"  Your  cousin  ?"  And  he  turned  to  me,  who  had  been 
examining  with  a  sad  and  envious  eye  the  contents  of  the 
bookshelves.  Our  eyes  met,  and  first  a  faint  blush,  and 
then  a  smile  of  recognition  passed  over  his  magnificent  coun- 
tenance. 

'■  1  think  I  had — I  am  ashamed  that  1  can  not  say  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  hinr  at  the  boat-race  yesterday." 

My  cousin  looked  inquiringly  and  vexed  at  us  both.  The 
nobleman  smiled. 

"Oh,  the  shame  was  ours,  not  his." 

"  I  can  not  think,"  I  answered,  "that  you  have  any  reasons 
to  remember  with  shame  your  own  kindness  and  courtesy. 
As  for  me,"  I  went  on  bitterly,  "  I  suppose  a  poor  journeyman 
tailor,  who  ventures  to  look  on  at  the  sports  of  gentlemen 
only  deserves  to  be  ridden  over." 

"  Sir,"  he  said,  looking  at  me  with  a  severe  and  searching 
glance,  "  Your  bitterness  is  pardonable — but  not  your  sneer. 
You  do,  not  yourself  think  what  you  say,  and  you  ought  to 
know  that  I  think  it  still  less  than  yourself  If  you  intend 
your  irony  to  be  useful,  you  should  keep  it  till  you  can  use  it 
courageously  against  the  true  ofiendcrs." 

J.  looked  up  at  him  fiercely  enough,  but  the  placid  smile 
which  had  returned  to  his  face  disarmed  me. 

"  Your  class,"  lie  went  on,  "  blind  yourselves  and  our  claoi 


134  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

as  much  by  wholesale  denunciations  of  us,  as  we,  alas  I  who 
should  know  better,  do  by  wholesale  denunciations  of  you. 
As  you  grow  older,  you  will  learn  that  there  are  exceptions 
To  cvefy^rule/' 

"  And  yet  the  exception  proves  the  rule." 

"  Most  painfully  true,  sir.  But  that  argument  is  two-edged. 
For  instance,  am  I  to  consider  it  the  exception  or  the  rule, 
when  I  am  told,  that  you,  a  journeyman  tailor,  are  able  to 
correct  these  proofs  for  me  ?" 

"  Nearer  the  rule,  I  think,  than  you  yet  fancy." 

"  You  speak  out  boldly  and  well ;  but  how  can  you  judge 
what  I  may  please  to  fancy  ?  At  all  events,  I  will  make 
trial  of  you.  There  are  the  proofs.  Bring  them  to  me  by 
four  o'clock  this  afternoon,  and  if  they  are  well  done,  I  will 
pay  you  more  than  I  should  to  the  average  hack-writer,  for 
you  will  deserve  more." 

I  took  the  proofs  ;  he  turned  to  go,  and  by  a  side-look  at 
George  beckoned  him  out  of  the  room.  I  heard  a  whispering 
in  the  passage;  and  I  do  not  deny  that  my  heart  beat  high 
with  new  hopes  as  I  caught  unwillingly  tlie  words — 

"  Such  a  forehead  I  such  an  eye  I  such  a  contour  of  feature 
as  that  I  Locule  mi — that  boy  ought  not  to  be  mending 
trowsers." 

My  cousin  returned,  half  laughing,  half  angry. 

'  Alton,  you  fcol,  why  did  you  let  out  that  you  were  a 
snip?" 

"  I  am  not  ashamed  of  ray  trade." 

"I  am,  then.  However  you've  done  with  it  now;  and  if 
you  can't  come  the  gentleman,  you  may  as  well  come  the 
rising  genius.  The  self-educated  dodge  pays  well  just  now  ; 
and  after  all,  you've  hooked  his  lordship — thank  me  for  that. 
But  you'll  never  hold  him,  you  impudent  dog,  if  you  pull  so 
hard  on  him,"  he  went  on,  putting  his  hands  into  his  coat-tail 
pockets  and  sticking  himself  in  I'ront  of  the  fire,  like  the  Del- 
phic Pythoness  upon  the  sacred  tripod,  in  hopes,  I  suppose  of 
some  oracular  afllatus,  "you  will  never  hold  him,  I  say,  if  you 
pull  so  hard  on  him.  You  ought  to  'My  lord'  him  for  months 
yet  at  least.  You  know,  my  good  lellow,  you  must  take 
every  possible  care  to  pick  up  what  good  breeding  you  can,  if 
I  take  the  trouble  to  put  you  in  the  way  of  good  society,  aud 
t(-ll  you  where  my  jjrivatc  bird's-nests  are,  like  the  green 
Bchool-boy  some  jioet  or  other  talks  of" 

"  lie  is  no  lord  of  mine,"  I  answered,  "  in  any  sense  of  the 
word,  and  llierefbro  I  shall  not  call  him  so." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.        13:] 

''  Upon  my  honor  !  here  is  a  young  gentleman  who  intends 
to  rise  in  the  world,  and  then  commences  hy  trying  to  walk 
through  the  first  post  he  meets  I  Noodle  I  can't  you  do  like 
me,  and  get  out  of"  the  carts'  way  wheu  they  come  by  ?  If 
you  intend  to  go  ahead,  you  must  just  dodge  in  and  out,  like  a 
dog  at  a  fair.  '  She  stoops  to  conquer'  is  my  motto,  and  a  pre- 
cious good  one  too." 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  conquer  Lord  Lynedale,  and  so  I  shall 
not  stoop  to  him." 

"  I  have  then,  and  to  very  good  purpose,  too.  I  am  his 
whetstone,  for  polishing  up  that  classical  wit  of  his  on,  till  he  | 
carries  it  into  parliament  to  astonish  the  country  squires.  He  j 
fancies  himself  a  second  Goethe ;  I  hav'n't  forgot  his  hitting 
at  me,  before  a  large  supper-party,  with  a  certain  epigram  of 
that  old  turkey-cock's,  about  the  whale  having  his  unmen- 
tionable parasite — and  the  great  man  likewise.  Whale,  in- 
deed I  I  bide  my  time,  Alton,  my  boy,  I  bide  my  time ;  and 
then  let  your  grand  aristocrat  look  out  I  If  he  does  not  find 
the  supposed  whale-unmentionable  a  good  stout  holding  har- 
poon, with  a  tough  line  to  it,  and  a  long  one,  it's  a  pity,  Al- 
ton, my  boy  I" 

And  he  burst  into  a  coarse  laugh,  tossed  himself  down  ou 
the  sofa,  and  re-lighted  his  meerschaum. 

"  He  seemed  to  me,"  I  answered,  "  to  have  a  peculiar  court- 
esy and  liberality  of  mind  toward  those  below  him  in  rank." 

"  Oh  I  he  had,  had  he  1  Now,  I'll  just  put  you  up  to  a 
dodge.  He  intends  to  come  the  Mirabeau — fancies  his  mantle 
has  fallen  on  him,  prays  before  the  fellow's  bust,  I  believe, 
if  one  knew  the  truth,  for  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit  ;  and 
therefore  it  is  a  part  of  his  game  to  ingratiate  himself  with  all 
pot-boy-dom,  while  at  heart  he  is  as  proud,  exclusive  an  aris- 
tocrat as  ever  wore  nobleman's  hat.  At  all  events,  you  may 
get  something  out  of  him  if  you  play  your  cards  well — or, 
rather  help  me  to  play  mine ;  for  I  consider  him  as  my  prop- 
erty, and  you  only  as  my  aid-dc-camp." 

"  I  shall  play  no  one's  cards,"  I  answered,  sulkily.  "  I  am 
doing  work  fairly,  and  shall  be  fairly  paid  for  it,  and  keep  my 
own  independence." 

"Independence!  hey-day  I  Have  you  forgotten  that,  after 
all,  you  are  my — guest,  to  call  it  by  the  mildest  term  ?" 

"  Do  you  upbraid  me  with  that  ?"  I  said,  starting  up. 
"  Do  you  expect  me  to  live  on  your  charily,  on  condition  of 
doing  your  dirty  work?  You  do  not  know  me,  sir.  I  leave 
your  roof  this  instant  I" 


136  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  You  do  not !"  answered  he,  laughing  loudly,  as  he  sprang 
over  the  sofa,  and  set  his  back  against  the  door.  "  Come, 
come,  you  Will-o'-the-Wisp,  as  full  of  flights,  and  fancies, 
and  vagaries,  as  a  sick  old  maid  I  can't  you  see  which  side 
your  bread  is  buttered  ?  Sit  down,  I  say  I  Don't  you  know 
that  I'm  as  good-natured  a  fellow  as  ever  lived,  although  I  do 
parade  a  little  Gil  Bias  morality  now  and  then,  just  for  fun's 
sake  ?  Do  you  think  I  should  be  so  open  with  it,  if  I  meant 
any  thing  very  diabolic  ?  There — sit  down,  and  don't  go 
into  King  Cambyses'  vein,  or  Queen  Hecuba's  tears,  either, 
which  you  seem  inclined  to  do." 

"  I  know  you  have  been  very  generous  to  me,"  said  I,  peni- 
tently, "^ut  a  kindness  becomes  none  when  you  are  upbraided 
with  it." 

"  So  say  the  copy  books — I  deny  it.  At  all  events,  I'll 
say  no  more  ;  and  you  shall  sit  down  there,  and  write  as  still 
as  a  mouse,  till  two,  while  I  tackle  this  never-to-be-enough- 
by-unhappy-third-years'-men-execrated  Griffin's  Optics." 

At  four  that  afternoon,  I  knocked,  proofs  in  hand,  at  the 
door  of  Lord  Lynedale's  rooms  in  the  King's  Parade.  Tlio 
door  was  opened  by  a  little  elderly  groom,  gray-coated,  gray- 
gaitered,  gray-haired,  gray-visaged.  He  had  the  look  of  a 
respectable  old  family  retainer,  and  hisexquisitely  neat  groom's 
dress  gave  him  a  sort  of  interest  in  my  eyes.  Class  oosturucs, 
relics  though  they  are  of  feudalism,  carry  a  charm  with  them. 
They  are  symbolic,  definitive;  they  bestow  a  personality  on 
the  weai"er,  which  satisfies  the  mind,  by  enabling  it  instantly 
to  classify  him,  to  connect  him  with  a  thousand  stories  and  as- 
sociations ;  and  to  my  young  mind,  the  wiry,  shrewd,  honest, 
grim  old  serving-man  seemed  the  incarnation  of  all  the  wonders 
of  Newmarket,  and  the  hunting-kennel,  and  the  steej^le-chase, 
of  which  I  had  read,  with  alternate  admiration  and  contempt, 
in  the  newspapers. 

From  between  his  legs  peeped  out  a  mass  of  shaggy  griz- 
zled hair,  containing  a  Skye-terrier's  eyes,  and  a  long  snout, 
which,  by  its  twisting  and  sniffing,  seemed  investigating 
whether  my  trowsers  came  within  the  biting  degree  of  shab- 
biness. 

"  And  what  do  you  want  here,  young  man  ?" 

"I  was  bidden  by  Lord  Lynedale  to  come  here  at  fcul 
with  these  pajjers." 

'•  Oh,  yes  1  very  likely  I  that's  an  old  story  ;  and  to  be  paid 
tnc'i'.'.'y,  I  guess  ]  ' 


ALT(JX  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  I'UKT.  137 

"  And  to  be  paid  money." 

"  Not  a  doubt  on't.  Then  you  must  wait  a  little  longer, 
like  the  rest  of  you  bloodsuckers.  Go  back,  and  tell  your 
master,  that  he  needn't  send  your  sort  here  any  more,  witli 
his  post  obits,  and  post  mortems,  and  the  like  devilry.  The 
old  earl's  jrood  to  last  these  three  monllis  more,  tne  Lord  bo 
jjraised.  Therefore,  come,  sir — you  po  back  to  your  master, 
und  take  him  my  compliments,  and — " 

"  I  have  no  master,"  quoth  I,  puzzled,  but  half  laughiug ; 
for  I  liked  the  old  fellow's  iron  honest  visage. 

"  No  master,  eh  ?  then  darned  if  you  shall  come  in.  Comes 
on  your  own  account,  eh?  Got  a  little  bit  of  paper  for  his 
lordship  in  that  bundle"?"  '" 

"  I  told  you  already  that  I  had,"  said  I,  peevishly. 

"  Werry  good  ;  but  you  didn't  tell  me  whether  they  come 
from  the  bayleaves  or  not." 

"Nonsense  I     Take  the  papers  in  yourself,  if  you  like." 

"  Oh,  you  young  wagabond  I  Do  you  take  me  for  Judas 
Iscariot  ?  And  what  do  you  expect — to  set  a  man  on  serving 
a  writ  on  a  man's  own  master  ?  Wait  a  bit,  till  I  gets  the 
hors'up,  that's  all,  and  I'll  show  you  what's  what." 

If  1  could  not  understand  him,  the  dog  did;  for  he  ran  in- 
stantly at  my  legs,  secured  a  large  piece  of  my  best  trowsers, 
and  was  returning  for  a  second,  if  I  had  not,  literally,  in  my 
perplexity  thrust  the  clean  proofs  into  his  mouth,  which  he 
worried  and  shook,  as  if  they  had  been  the  grandfather  of  all 
white  mice.  At  this  moment,  the  inner  door  opened,  and 
Lord  Lynedale  appeared.  There  was  an  explanation,  and  a 
laugh,  in  which  I  could  not  but  join,  in  spite  of  the  torn 
trowsers,  at  the  expense  of  the  groom.  The  old  man  retired, 
mingling  his  growls  with  those  of  the  terrier,  and  evidently 
quite  disappointed  at  my  not  being  a  dun — an  honest,  douce 
barn-door  fowl,  and  not /era  naturcc,  and  fair  game  for  his 
sporting  propensities. 

Lord  Lynedale  took  me  into  the  inner  room,  and  bade  me 
sit  down  while  he  examined  the  proofs,  I  looked  round  the 
low-wainscoted  apartment,  with  its  narrow  mullioned  win- 
dows, in  extreme  curiosity.  What  a  real  nobleman's  abode 
could  be  like,  was  naturally  worth  examining,  to  one  who  had, 
all  his  life,  heard  of  the  aristocracy  as  of  some  mythic  Titans 
— whether  fiends  or  gods  being  yet  a  doubtful  point — alto- 
gether enshrined  on  "  cloudy  Olympus,"  invisible  to  mortal 
ken.  The  shelves  Avere  gay  with  Morocco,  R^ussia  leather, 
and  gilding — not  much  used,  as  I  thought,  till  my  eye  caught 


i33  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET. 

one  of  the  gorgeously-bound  volumes  lying  on  the  table  in 
a  loose  cover  of  polished  leather — a  i-efinement  of  which  poor 
I  should  never  have  dreamt.  The  Avails  were  covered  with 
prints,  wliich  soon  turned  my  eyes  from  every  thing  else, 
to  range  delighted  over  Landseers,  Turners,  Roberts's  Eastern 
Sketches,  the  ancient  Italian  masters  ;  and  I  recognized,  with 
a  sort  of  friendly  aflection,  an  old  print  of  my  favorite  St. 
Sebastian,  in  the  Dulwich  Gallery.  It  brought  back  to  my 
mind  a  thousand  dreams,  and  a  thousand  sorrows.  Would 
those  dreams  be  ever  realized  1  Might  this  new  acquaintance 
possibly  open  some  pathway  toward  tiieir  fulfillment  ? — some 
vista  toward  the  attainment  of  a  station  where  they  would,  at 
least,  be  less  chimerical  ?  And  at  that  thought,  my  heart 
beat  loud  with  hope.  The  room  was  choked  up  with  chairs 
and  tables,  of  all  sorts  of  strange  shapes  and  problematical 
uses.  The  floor  was  strewed  with  skins  of  bear,  deer,  and 
seal.  In  a  corner  lay  hunting-whips  and  fishing-rods,  foils, 
boxing-gloves,  and  gun- cases  ;  while  over  the  chimney-piece, 
an  array  of  rich  Turkish  pipes,  all  amber  and  enamel,  con- 
trasted curiously  with  quaint  old  swords  and  daggers — bronze 
classic  casts,  upon  gothic  oak  brackets,  and  fantastic  scraps 
of  continental  carving.  On  the  centre-table,  too,  reigned  the 
same  rich  profusion,  or,  if  you  will,  confusion — MSS.  "Notes 
in  Egypt,"  "Goethe's  Walverwandschaften,"  Murray's  Hand- 
books, and  "Plato's  Republic."  What  was  there  not  there? 
And  I  chuckled  inwardly,  to  see  how  BclVs  Life  in  Lo7idon 
and  the  Ecdcsiologist  had,  between  them,  got  down  "McCul- 
loch  on  Taxation,"  and  were  sitting,  arm-in-arm,  triumphantly 
astride  of  him.  Every  thing  in  the  room,  even  to  the  Iragrant 
flowers  in  a  German  glass,  spoke  of  a  traveled  and  cultivated 
luxury — manifold  tastes  and  powers  of  self-enjoyment  and 
eelf-improvment,  which  Heaven  forgive  me  if  I  envied,  as  I 
looked  upon  them.  If  I,  now,  had  had  one-twentieth  part  of 
those  books,  prints,  that  experience  of  life,  not  to  mention 
that  physical  strength  and  beauty,  which  stood  towering 
there  before  the  fire — so  simple — so  utterly  unconscious  of 
the  innate  nobleness  and  grace  which  shone  out  from  every 
motion  of  those  stately  limbs  and  features — all  the  delicacy 
which  blood  can  give,  combined,  as  one  does  sometimes  see, 
with  the  broad  strength  ol"  the  proletarian — so  dilierent  from 
poor  me  I — and  so  dilierent  too,  as  I  recollected  Avith  perhaps 
a  savage  pleasure,  from  the  miserable,  stunted  specimen  of 
over-bred  imbecility  Avhich  had  ridden  over  me  the  day  before . 
A  strange  question  that  of  birth  !  and  one  in  Avhich  the  phi- 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OF.T.        V.IO 

.osoplier,  ill  spite  of  himself,  must  come  to  democratic  conclu- 
sions. For,  after  all,  the  physical  and  intellectual  superiority 
of  the  hi;^h-born  is  only  preserved,  as  it  was  in  the  old  Norman 
times,  by  the  continual  practical  abnegation  of  the  very  caste- 
lie  on  which  they  pride  th«riselves — by  continual  renovation 
of  their  race,  by  intermarriage  with  the  ranks  below  them. 
The  blood  of  Odin  flowed  in  the  veins  of  Norman  William  ; 
true — and  so  did  the  tanner's  of  Falaise  I 

At  last  he  looked  up,  and  spoke  courteously — 
"  I'm  afraid  1  have  kept  you  long  ;  but  now,  here  is  for 
yonr  corrections,  which  are  capital.      I  have  really  to  thank 
you  for  a  lesson  in  Avriling  English."     And  he  put  a  sovereign 
into  my  hand. 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  said  I,  "  but  I  have  no  change." 

"  Never  mind  that.     Your  work  is  well  worth  the  money." 

"But,"  I  said,  "you  agreed  with  me  for  five  shillings  a 

sheet,  and — T  do  not  wish  to  be  rude,  but  I  can  not  accept 

your  kindness.     We  working-men  make  a  rule  of  abiding  by 

our  wages,  and  taking  nothing  which  looks  like — " 

"  W^ell,  well — and  a  very  good  rule  it  is.  I  suppose, 
then,  I  must  find  out  some  way  for  you  to  earn  more.  Good 
alternoon."  And  he  motioned  me  out  of  the  room,  fol- 
lowed me  down-stairs,  and  turned  oh"  toward  the  College 
Gaiilens. 

1  wandered  up  and  down,  feeding  my  greedy  ej'es,  till  I  found 
m3-.'5elf  again  upon  the  bridge  where  I  had  stood  that  morning, 
gazing  with  admiration  and  astonishment  at  a  scene  which 
I  have  often  expected  to  see  painted  or  described,  and  which, 
nevertheless,  in  spile  of  its  unique  magnificence,  seems  strangely 
overlooked  by  those  who  cater  for  the  public  taste,  with  pen 
and  pencil.  The  vista  of  bridges,  one  after  another,  spanning 
the  stream  ;  the  long  line  of  great  monastic  palaces,  all  un- 
like, and  yet  all  in  harmony,  sloping  down  to  the  stream,  with 
their  trim  lawns  and  ivied-walls,  their  towers  and  buttresses  ; 
and  opposit(3  them,  the  range  of  rich  gardens  and  noble  tim- 
ber-trees, dimly  seen  through  which,  at  the  end  of  the  gor- 
geous river  avenue,  towered  the  lofty  buildings  of  St.  John's. 
The  whole  scene,  under  the  glow  of  a  rich  May  afternoon, 
seemed  to  me  a  fragment  out  of  the  "  Arabian  Nights"  or 
Spenser's  "  Fairy  Queen."  I  leaned  upon  the  parapet,  and 
gazed,  and  gazed,  so  absorbed  in  wonder  and  enjoyment,  that 
I  was  quite  unconscious,  for  some  time,  that  Lord  Lynedalo 
was  standing  by  my  side,  engaged  in  the  same  employment. 
Ho  Avas  not  alone.     Hanging  on  his  arm  was  a  lady,  wlioso 


140  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOU  AAD  POET. 

face,  it  seemed  to  me,  I  ought  to  know.  It  certainly  was  4 
not  to  be  easily  forgotten.  She  was  beautiful,  but  with  le 
face  and  figure  rather  of  a  Juno  than  a  Venus — dark,  imj  jn- 
ous,  restless — the  lips  almost  too  firmly  set,  the  brow  almost 
too  massive  and  projectino; — a  queen,  rather  to  be  feared  than 
loved — but  a  queen  still,  as  truly  royal  as  the  man  into  whose 
face  she  was  looking  up  with  eager  admiration  and  delight,  as 
he  pointed  out  to  her  eloquently  the  several  beauties  of  thr 
landscape.  Her  dress  was  as  plain  as  that  of  any  Quaker , 
but  the  grace  of  its  arrangement,  of  every  line  and  fold,  waj 
enough,  without  the  help  of  the  heavy  gold  bracelet  on  hei 
wrist,  to  proclaim  her  a  fine  lady  ;  by  whicb  term,  I  wish  tc 
express  the  result  of  that  perfect  education  in  taste  and  man 
ner,  down  to  every  gesture,  which  Heaven  forbid  that  I,  pro 
fessing  to  be  a  poet,  should  undervalue.  It  is  beautiful ;  anu 
therefore  I  welcome  it,  in  the  name  of  the  Author  of  ah 
beauty.  I  value  it  so  highly,  that  I  would  fain  sec  it  extena, 
not  merely  from  Belgravia  to  the  tradesman's  villa,  but  thence, 
as  I  believe  it  one  day  will,  to  the  laborer's  hovel,  and  the 
needlewoman's  garret. 

Half  in  bashfulness,  half  in  the  pride  which  shrinks  from 
any  thing  like  intrusion,  I  was  moving  aw^ay  ;  but  the  nobie- 
man,  recognizing  me  with  a  smile  and  a  nod,  made  some  ob- 
servation on  the  beauty  of  the  scene  before  us.  Before  I  coald 
answer,  however,  I  saw  that  his  companion's  eyes  were  fixed 
intently  on  my  face. 

"Is  this,"  she  said  to  Lord Lynedale,  "  the  young  person  of 
whom  you  were  speaking  to  me  just  now  I  I  fancy  that  I  rec- 
ollect him,  though,  I  dare  say,  he  has  forgotten  me." 

If  I  had  forgotten  the  face,  that  voice,  so  peculiarly  rich, 
deep,  and  marked  in  its  pronunciation  of  every  syllable,  re- 
called her  instantly  to  my  mind.     It  was  the  dark  lady  of 
I  the  Dulwich  Gallery  I 

"I  met,  you,  I  thirds:,"  I  said,  "at  the  picture-gallery  at 
Dulwich,  and  you  were  kind  enough,  and — and  some  persons 
who  were  with  you,  to  talk  to  me  about  a  picture  there." 

"Yes;  Guide's  St.  Sebastian.  You  seemed  fond  of  reading, 
then.     I  am  glad  to  see  you  at  college." 

I  explained,  that  I  was  not  at  college.  That  led  to  fresh 
gentle  questions  on  her  part,  till  T  had  given  her  all  the  lead 
ing  points  of  my  history.  There  was  nothing  in  it  of  which 
I  ought  to  have  been  ashamed. 

She  seemed  to  become  more  and  more  interested  in  my 
Btory,  and  her  companion  also. 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        HI 

"  And  have  you  tried  to  Avrile  ?  I  recollect  my  uncle 
advising  you  to  "try  a  poem  on  St.  Sebastian.  It  was  sjjoken, 
perhaps,  in  jest  ;  but  it  will  not,  I  hope,  have  been  laboi 
lost,  if  you  have  taken  it  in  earnest." 

"Yes — I  have  written  on  that  and  on  other  subjects,  during 
the  last  few  years." 

"  Then,  you  must  let  us  see  tliem,  if  you  have  them  with 
you.  I  think  my  uncle,  Arthur,  might  like  to  look  ovci 
Ihera  ;  and  if  they  were  fit  for  publication,  he  might  be  abk 
to  do  something  toward  it." 

"At  all  events,"  said  Lord  Lynedale,  "a  self-educated 
author  is  always  interesting.  Bring  any  of  your  poems  that 
you  have  with  you,  to  the  Eagle  this  afternoon,  and  leave 
them  there  fur  Dean  Winnstay  ;  and  to-morrow  morning,  if 
j'ou  have  nothing  bettor  to  do,  call  there  between  ten  and 
eleven  o'clock." 

lie  wrote  me  down  the  dean's  address,  and  nodding  a  civil 
good  morning,  turned  away  with  his  queenly  companion,  while 
I  stood  gazing  after  him,  wondering  whether  all  noblemen 
and  high-born  ladies  were  like  them  in  person  and  in  spirit — 
a  question,  which,  in  spite  of  many  noble  exceptions,  some  of 
them  well  known  and  appreciated  by  the  working-men,  I  am 
afraid  must  be  answered  in  the  negative. 

I  took  my  MSS.  to  the  Eagle,  and  wandered  out  once 
more,  instinctively,  among  those  same  magnificent  trees  at  the  ^ 
back  of  the  colleges,  to  enjoy  the  pleasing  torment  of  expecta- 
tion. "My  uncle  I"  was  he  the  same  old  man  whom  I  had 
seen  at  the  gallery  ;  and  if  so,  was  Lillian  with  him  ?  De- 
licious hope  I  And  yet,  what  if  she  was  with  him — what  to 
me  ?  But  yet  I  sat  silent,  dreaming,  all  the  evening,  and  hur- 
ried early  to  bed — not  to  sleep,  but  to  lie  and  dream  on  and  on, 
and  rise  almost  before  light,  eat  no  breakfast,  and  pace  up  and 
down,  waiting  impatiently  lor  the  hour  at  which  I  was  to  find 
out  whether  my  dream  was  true. 

And  it  was  true  I  The  first  object  I  saAV,  when  I  entered  \ 
the  room,  w^as  Lillian,  looking  more  beautiful  than  ever.  The 
child  of  sixteen  had  blossomed  into  the  woman  of  twenty. 
The  ivory  and  vermillion  of  the  complexion  had  toned  down 
together  into  still  richer  hues.  The  dark  hazel  eyes  shone 
with  a  more  liquid  lustre.  The  figure  had  become  more 
rounded,  without  losing  a  line  of  that  fairy  lightness,  with 
which  her  light  morning-dress,  with  its  delicate  French  semi- 
tones of  color,  gay  and  yet  not  gaudy,  seemed  to  hai-monize. 
The  little  plump  jeweled  hands — the   transparent  chestnut 


142  ALTON  LOCKE,  TxMLOR  AND  POET. 

hair,  banded  round  the  beautiful  oval  mask — the  tiny  feet, 
which,  as  Suckling  has  it, 

"Underiieafh  her  petticoat 
Like  little  mice  peeped  in  and  out" — 

I  could  have  fallen  down,  fool  that  I  was  I  and  worshiped— 
what  ?     I  could  not  tell  then,  for  I  can  not  tell  even  now. 

The  dean  smiled  recognition,  bade  me  sit  down,  and  dis- 
posed my  papers,  meditatively,  on  his  knee.  I  obeyed  him. 
trembling,  choking — my  eyes  devouring  my  idol — forgetting 
why  I  had  come — seeing  nothing  but  her — !  .stening  for  noth- 
ing but  the  opening  of  those  hps.  I  believe  the  dean  was 
some  sentences  deep  in  his  oration,  before  I  became  conscious 
thereof. 

" — And  I  think  I  may  tell  you,  at  on(;e,  that  I  have 
been  very  much  surprised  and  gratified  with  them.  They 
evince,  on  the  whole,  a  far  greater  acquaintance  with  the 
EngUsh  classic  models,  and  with  the  laws  of  rhyme  and 
melody,  than  could  have  been  expected  from  a  young  man 
of  your  class  —  onacte  virtute  imer.  Have  you  read  any 
Latin]" 

"  A  little."  And  I  went  on  staring  at  Lillian,  who  looked 
up,  furtively,  from  her  work,  every  now  and  then,  to  steal  a 
glance  at  me,  and  set  my  poor  heart  thumping  still  more 
iiA'CSgly  against  my  side. 

"  Very  good  ;  you  will  have  the  less  trouble,  then,  in  the 
preparation  for  college.  You  will  find  out  for  yourself,  of 
course,  the  immense  disadvantages  of  self-education.  The 
fact  is,  my  dear  lord"  (turning  to  Lord  Lynedale),  "  it  is  only 
useful  as  an  indication  of  a  capability  of  being  educated  by 
others.  One  never  opens  a  book  written  by  working-men, 
without  shuddering  at  a  hundred  faults  of  style.  However, 
there  are  some  very  tolerable  attempts  among  these — espe 
cially  the  imitations  of  Milton's  "  Comus." 

Poor  I  had  by  no  means  intended  them  as  imitations ;  but 
such,  110  doubt,  they  were. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  Shelley  has  had  so  much  influence 
on  your  writing.  He  is  a  guide  as  irregular  in  taste,  as  un- 
orthodox in  doctrine  ;  though  there  are  some  pretty  things  in 
him  now  and  then.  And  you  have  caught  his  melody  toler- 
ably here,  now — " 

"  Oh,  that  is  such  a  sweet  thing  I"  said  Lilian.  "  Do  you 
know,  I  read  it  over  and  over  last  night,  and  took  it  up-slair« 
with  me.     ITow  very  fond  of  beautiful  things  you  must  be, 


ALTON  LOCKR,  TAILOR  AND  rOfclT  143 

Mr.  Locke,  to  be  able  to  describe  so  passionately  the  longing 
after  them 

That  voice  once  more  I  It  intoxicated  me,  so  that  I  hardly 
knew  what  I  stammered  out — something  about  working-men 
having  very  few  opportunities  of  indulging  the  taste  ibr — I 
forget  what.  I  believe  I  was  on  the  point  of  running  ofFinto 
some  absurd  compliment,  but  I  caught  the  dark  lady's  warn 
ing  eye  on  me. 

""  Ah,  yes  I  I  forgot.  I  daresay  it  must  be  a  very  stupid 
life.  So  little  opportunity,  as  he  says.  What  a  pity  he  is  a 
tailor,  papa  I  Such  au  unimaginative  employment  !  How 
delightful  it  M'ould  be  to  send  him  to  college,  and  make  him 
a  clergyman  I" 

Fool  that  I  was  I  I  fancied — what  did  I  not  fancy  1 
Never  seeing  how  that  very  "  he'  bespoke  the  indilTerence — ■ 
the  gulf  between  us.  I  was  not  a  man — an  equal ;  but  a 
thing — a  subject,  who  was  to  be  talked  over,  and  examined, 
and  made  into  something  like  themselves,  of  their  supreme 
and  undeserved  benevolence. 

"  Gently,  gently,  fair  lady  I  We  must  not  be  as  headlong 
as  some  people  would  kindly  wish  to  be.  If  this  young  man 
really  has  a  proper  desire  to  rise  into  a  higher  station,  and  I 
find  him  a  fit  object  to  be  assisted  in  that  praiseworthy  ambi- 
tion, why,  I  think  he  ought  to  go  to  some  training  college  ; 
St.  Mark's,  I  should  say,  on  the  whole,  might,  by  its  strDug 
Church  principles,  give  the  best  antidote  to  any  little  remain- 
ing taint  of  sans-culottism.  You  understand  me,  my  lord  ? 
And,  then,  if  he  distinguished  himself  there,  it  would  be  time 
to  think  of  getting  him  a  sizarship." 

"Poor  Pegasus  in  harness  I"  half  smiled,  half  sighed,  the 
dark  lady. 

"  Just  the  sort  of  youth,"  whispered  Lord  Lyuedale,  loud 
enough  for  me  to  hear,  "  to  take  out  with  us  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, as  secretary — s'il  y  avait  la  de  la  morale,  of  course — " 

Yes — and  of  course,  too,  the  tailor's  boy  was  not  expected 
to  understand  French.  But  the  most  absurd  thing  was,  how 
every  body,  except  perhaps  the  dark  lady,  seemed  to  take  for 
granted  that  I  felt  myself  exceedingly  honored,  and  must  con- 
sider it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  greatest  possible  stretch  of 
kindness  thus  to  talk  me  over,  and  settle  every  thing  for  me, 
as  if  I  was  not  a  living  soul,  but  a  plant  in  a  pot.  Perhaps 
'-hey  were  not  unsupported  by  experience.  I  suppose  too 
many  of  us  would  have  thought  it  so  ;  there  are  flunkies  in 
all  ranks   and  to  spare.     Perhaps  the  true  absurdity  was  ihi 


I'll        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

way  in  which  I  sat,  demented,  inarticulate,  staring  at  LiUian, 
and  only  caring  for  any  word  which  seemed  to  augur  a  chance 
of  seeing  her  again  ;  mstead  of  saying,  as  I  felt,  that  I  had 
no  wish  whatever  to  rise  above  my  station  ;  no  intention 
whatever  of  being  sent  to  training-schools  or  colleges,  or  any 
where  else  at  the  expense  of  other  people.  And  therefore  it 
was  that  I  submitted  blindly,  Mdien  the  dean,  who  looked  as 
kind,  and  was  really,  I  believe,  as  kind,  as  ever  was  human 
being,  turned  to  me  with  a  solemn  authoritative  voice — 

"  Well,  my  young  friend,  I  must  say  that  I  am,  on  the 
whole,  very  much  pleased  with  your  performance.  It  corrob- 
orates, my  dear  lord,  the  assertion,  for  which  I  have  been  so 
often  ridiculed,  that  there  are  many  real  men,  capable  of 
higher  things,  scattered  up  and  down  among  the  masses. 
Attend  to  me,  sir  I"  (a  hint  which  I  suspect  I  very  much 
\vanted).  "  Now,  recollect ;  if  it  should  be  hereafter  in  our 
power  to  assist  your  prospects  in  life,  you  must  give  up,  once 
and  for  all,  the  bitter  tone  against  the  higher  classes,  which  I 
am  sorry  to  see  in  your  MSS.  As  you  know  more  of  the 
world,  you  will  find  that  the  poor  are  not  by  any  means  as 
ill-used  as  they  are  taught,  in  these  days,  to  believe.  The 
rich  have  their  sorrows  too— no  one  knows  it  better  than  I" 
(and  he  played  pensively  with  his  gold  pencil  case) — "  and 
good  and  evil  are  pretty  equally  distributed  among  all  ranks, 
by  a  just  and  merciful  God.  I  advise  you  most  earnestly,  as 
you  value  your  future  success  in  life,  to  give  up  reading  those 
unprincipled  authors,  whose  aim  is  to  excite  the  evil  passions 
of  the  multitude ;  and  to  shut  your  ears  betimes  to  the  ex- 
travagant calumnies  of  demagogues,  who  make  tools  of  enthu- 
siastic and  imaginative  minds,  for  their  own  selll.sh  aggrand- 
izement. Avoid  politics  ;  the  workman  has  no  more  to  do 
with  them  than  the  clergyman.  We  are  told,  on  divine 
authority,  to  fear  God  and  the  king,  and  meddle  not  with 
those  who  are  given  to  change.  Rather  put  before  yourself 
the  example  of  such  a  man  as  the  excellent  Dr.  Brown,  one 
of  the  richest  and  most  respected  men  of  the  luiiversity,  Avith 
whom  I  hope  to  have  the  pleasure  of  dining  this  evening — 
and  yet  that  man  actually,  for  several  years  of  his  life,  worked 
at  a  carpenter's  bench  I" 

I  too  had  something  to  say  about  all  that.  I  too  knew 
something  about  demagogues  and  working-men:  but  the  sight 
of  Lillian  made  me  a  coward  ;  and  I  only  sat  silent  as  the 
thought  flashed  across  me,  half  hidicrous,  half  painful,  by  its 
contrast,  of  another  who  once  worked  at  a  carpenter's  bench, 


ALTON  LOCKP:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  145 

and  fulfilled  his  mission — not  by  an  old  age  of  wealth,  respect- 
ability, and  port  wine  ;  but  on  the  cross  of  Calvary.  After 
all,  the  worthy  old  gentleman  gave  me  no  time  to  answer. 

"  Next — I  think  of  showing  these  MSS.  to  my  publisher, 
to  get  his  opinion  as  to  whether  they  are  worth  printing  just 
now.  Not  that  I  wish  you  to  build  much  on  the  chance.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  you  should  be  a  poet.  I  should  prefer 
mathematics  for  you,  as  a  methodic  discipline  of  the  intellect. 
Most  active  minds  write  poetry,  at  a  certain  age — I  wrote  a 
<ro()d  deal,  I  recollect,  myself  But  that  is  no  reason  for  pub- 
lishing. This  haste  to  rush  into  print  is  one  of  the  bad  signs 
<jf  the  times — a  symptom  of  the  unhealthy  activity  which  was 
iirst  called  out  by  the  French  revolution.  In  the  Elizabethan 
age,  every  decently-educated  gentleman  was  able,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  to  indite  a  sonnet  to  his  mistress's  eyebrow,  or  an 
epigram  on  his  enemy  ;  and  yet  he  never  dreamt  of  printing 
them.  One  of  the  few  rational  things  I  have  met  with, 
Eleanor,  in  the  works  of  your  very  objectionable  pet,  Mr. 
Carlyle — though  indeed  his  style  is  too  intolerable  to  have 
ullowed  me  to  read  much — is  the  remark  that  'speech  is  silver' 
— 'silvern'  he  calls  it  pedantically — 'while  silence  is  golden.'  " 

At  this  point  of  the  sermon,  Lillian  fled  from  the  room,  to 
my  extreme  disgust.     But  still  the  old  man  prosed — 

"  I  think,  therefore,  that  you  had  better  stay  with  your 
cousin  for  the  next  week.  I  hear  from  Lord  Lynedale,  that 
ho  is  a  very  studious,  moral,  rising  young  man  ;  and  I  only 
hope  that  you  will  follow  his  good  example.  At  the  end  of 
the  week  I  shall  return  home,  and  then  I  shall  be  glad  to  see 

more  of  you  at  my  house  at  D ,  about  —  miles  from  this 

place.     Good  morning." 

I  went,  in  rapture  at  the  last  announcement — and  yet  my 
conscience  smote  me.  I  had  not  stood  up  for  the  working- 
men.  I  had  heard  them  calumniated,  and  held  my  tongue — 
but  I  was  to  see  Lillian.  I  had  let  the  dean  fancy  I  was  will- 
ing to  become  a  pensioner  on  his  bounty — that  I  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  of  England,  and  willing  to  go  to  a  Church 
Training  School — but  I  was  to  see  Lillian.  I  had  lowered 
myself  in  my  own  eyes — but  I  had  seen  Lillian.  Perhaps  I 
exaggerated  my  own  ofienses  :  however  that  may  be,  love 
soon  silenced  conscience,  and  I  almost  danced  into  my  cousin's 
rooms  on  my  return. 

That  week  passed  rapidly  and  happily.  I  was  half  amused 
with  the  change  in  my  cousin's  demeanor.     I  had  evidently 

a 


M6        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

risen  immensely  in  his  eyes  :  and  I  could  not  help  applying, 
in  my  heart,  to  him,  Mr.  Carlyle's  dictum  about  the  valet 
species — how  they  never  honor  the  unaccredited  hero,  having 
no  eye  to  find  him  out  till  properly  accredited,  and  counter- 
signed, and  accoutred  with  lull  uniform  and  diploma  by  that 
great  God,  Public  Opinion.  I  saw  through  the  motive  of  his 
new-fledged  respect  for  me — and  yet  I  encouraged  it  ;  for  it 
flattered  my  vanity.  The  world  must  forgive  me.  It  was 
something  for  the  poor  tailor  to  find  himself  somewhat  appre- 
ciated at  last,  even  outwardly.  And  besides,  this  said  respect 
took  a  form  which  was  very  tempting  to  me  now — though  the 
week  before  it  was  just  the  one  which  I  should  have  repelled 
with  scorn.  George  became  very  anxious  to  lend  me  money, 
to  order  me  clothes  at  his  own  tailor's,  and  set  me  up  in  vari- 
ous little  toilet  refinements,  that  I  might  make  a  respectable 
appearance  at  the  dean's.  I  knew  that  he  consulted  rather 
the  honor  of  the  family,  than  my  good  ;  but  I  did  not  know 
that  his  aim  was  also  to  get  me  into  his  power ;  and  I  refused 
'  more  and  more  weakly  at  each  fresh  ofler,  and  at  last  consent- 
ed, in  an  evil  hour,  to  sell  my  own  independence,  for  the  sake  of 
indulging  my  love-dream,  and  appearing  to  be  what  I  was  not. 
I  saw  a  good  deal  more  of  the  young  university  men  that 
week.  I  can  not  say  that  my  recollections  of  them  were 
pleasant.  A  few  of  them  were  very  bigoted  Tractarians — 
some  of  whom  seemed  to  fancy  that  a  dilettante  admiration 
for  crucifixes  and  Gothic  architecture,  was  a  form  of  religion, 
which,  by  its  extreme  perfection,  made  the  virtues  of  chastity 
and  sobriety  quite  unnecessary — and  the  rest,  of  a  more  as- 
cetic and  moral  turn,  seemed  as  narrow,  bitter,  flippant,  and 
un-earnest  young  men  as  I  had  ever  met,  dealing  in  second- 
hand party  statements,  gathered,  as  I  could  discover,  entirely 
from  periodicals  of  their  own  party — taking  pride  in  reading 
nothing  but  what  was  made  for  them,  indulging  in  the  most 
violent  nick-names  and  railing,  and  escaping  from  any  thing 
like  severe  argument  by  a  sneer  or  an  expression  of  theatrical 
horror  at  so  "  painful"  a  notion.  I  had  good  opportunities  of 
seeing  what  they  were  really  like  ;  for  my  cousin  seemed  to 
take  delight  in  tormenting  them — making  them  contradict 
themselves,  getting  them  into  dilemmas,  and  putting  them 
into  passions,  Avhile  the  whole  time  he  professed  to  be  of  theii 
party,  as  indeed  he  was.  But  his  consciousness  of  power,  and 
his  natural  craft,  seemed  to  make  him  consider  his  own  paitji 
as  his  private  preserve  for  sporting  over  ;  and  when  he  was 
tired  with  the  amusement,  he  used  to  try  to  call  me  in,  and 


ALTON   LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  TOET.  147 

set  inc  by  the  ears  with  his  guests,  which  he  had  no  great 
trouble  in  doing.  And  then,  when  he  saw  me  at  all  confused, 
or  borne  down  by  statements  from  authors,  of  whose  very 
names  I  had  never  hoard,  or  by  expressions  of  horror  and  sur- 
prise which  made  me  suspect  that  I  had  unconsciously  com- 
mitted myself  to  an  absurdity,  he  used  to  come  "hurling  into 
the  midst  of  the  press,"  like  some  knight  at  a  tournart>ent,  or 
Socrates  when  he  saved  Alcibiades  at  Delium,  and,  by  a  dex- 
terous repartee,  turn  the  tide  of  battle,  and  get  me  off  safe — 
taking  care,  by-the-by,  to  hint  to  me  the  obligation  which  he 
considered  himself  to  have  conferred  upon  me. 

But  the  great  majority  of  the  young  men  whom  I  met  were 
even  of  a  lower  stamp.  I  was  utterly  shocked  and  disap-i 
pointed  at  the  contempt  and  unbelief  with  which  they  seem- 
ed to  regard  every  thing  beyond  mere  animal  enjoyment,  and 
here  and  there  the  selfish  advantage  of  a  good  degree.  They 
seemed,  if  one  could  judge  from  appearances,  to  despise 
and  disbeliev^e  every  thing  generous,  enthusiastic,  enlarged. 
Thoughtfulness  was  a  "bore;"  earnestness,  "romance." — 
Above  all,  they  seemed  to  despise  the  university  itself.  The 
"Dons"  were  "idle,  fat  old  humbugs;"  chapel,  "a  humbug 
too;"  tutors,  "  humbugs"  too,  who  played  into  the  tradesmen's 
hands,  and  charged  men  high  fees  for  lectures  not  worth  at- 
tending— so  that  any  man  who  M'anted  to  get  on,  was  forced 
to  have  a  private  tutor,  besides  his  college  one.  The  univers- 
ity studies  were  "  a  humbug" — no  use  to  a  man  in  after-life. 
The  masters  of  arts  were  "humbugs"  too;  for  "they  knew 
all  the  evils,  and  clamored  for  reform  till  they  became  Dons 
themselves  ;  and  then,  as  soon  as  they  found  the  old  system 
pay,  they  settled  down  on  their  lees,  and  grew  fat  on  port 
wine,  like  those  before  them."  They  seemed  to  consider 
themselves  in  an  atmosphere  of  humbug — living  in  a  lie — out 
of  which  lie-element  those  who  chose  were  very  right  in  mak- 
ing the  most,  for  the  gaining  of  fame  or  money.  And  the 
tone  which  they  took  about  every  thing — the  coarseness,  hol- 
lo^^^less,  Gil  Bias  selfislmess — was  just  what  might  have  been 
expected.  Whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in  their  com- 
plaints, I,  of  course,  have  no  means  of  accurately  knowing. 
But  it  did  seem  strange  to  me,  as  it  has  to  others,  to  find  in 
the  mouths  of  almost  all  the  gownsmen,  those  very  same 
charges  against  the  universities  which,  when  working-men 
dare  to  make  them,  excite  outcries  of  "calumny,"  "sedition," 
"  vulgar  radicalism,"  "  attacks  on  our  time-honored  institu- 
tions," &c.,  &".c. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
A  CATHEDRAL  TOWN. 

At  length,  the  wished-for  day  had  arrived ;  and,  with  my 
cousin,  I  was  whirhng  along  full  of  hope  and  desire,  toward 

the  cathedral  town  of  D ,  through  a  flat  fen  country,  whicli, 

though  I  had  often  heard  it  described  as  ugly,  struck  my  im- 
agination much.  The  vast  height  and  width  of  the  sky-arch, 
as  seen  from  those  flats,  as  from  an  ocean — the  gray  haze 
shrouding  the  horizon  of  our  narrow  land-view,  and  closing 
us  in,  till  we  seemed  to  be  floating  through  infinite  space,  on 
a  little  platform  of  earth ;  the  rich  poplar-fringed  farms,  with 
their  herds  of  dappled  oxen — the  luxuriant  crops  of  oats  and 
beans — the  tender  green  of  the  tall  rape,  a  plant  till  then 
unknown  to  me — the  long,  straight,  silver  dykes,  with  their 
gaudy  carpets  of  strange  floating  water  plants,  and  their  black 
banks  studded  with  the  remains  of  buried  forests — the  innum- 
erable draining-mills,  with  their  creaking  sails  and  groaning 
Avheels — the  endless  rows  of  pollard  willows,  through  which 
the  breeze  moaned  and  rung,  as  through  the  strings  of  some 
vast  ^olian  harp ;  the  little  island  knolls  in  that  vast  sea 
of  fen,  each  with  its  long  village  street,  and  delicately  taper 
spire ;  all  this  seemed  to  me  to  contain  an  element  of  ncAV 
and  peculiar  beauty. 

"  Why  I"  exclaims  the  reading  public,  if  perchance  it  ever 
sees  this  tale  of  mine,  in  its  usual  purient  longing  after  any 
thing  like  personal  gossip,  or  scandalous  anecdote,  "  why,  there 
is  no  cathedral  town  which  begins  with  a  D  I  Through  the 
fen,  too  I  He  must  mean  either  Ely,  Lincoln,  or  Peterborough  : 
that's  certain."  Then,  at  one  of  those  places,  they  find  there 
is  a  dean — not  of  the  name  of  Winnstay,  true — but  his  name 
begins  with  a  W ;  and  he  has  a  pretty  daughter — no,  a 
niece ;  well,  that's  very  near  it ;  it  must  be  him.  No ;  at 
another  place — there  is  not  a  dean,  true — but  a  canon,  or  an 
archdeacon — something  of  that  kind  ;  and  he  has  a  pretty 
daughter,  really;  and  his  name  begins  not  withW,  but  with 
Y ;  well,  that's  the  last  letter  of  Winnstay,  if  it  is  not  the 
first  ;  that  mu$t  be  the  poor  man  I  What  a  shame  to  have 
exposed  his  family  secrets  in  that  way !"  And  then  a  whole 
circle  of  myths  grow  up  around  the  man's  story.  It  is  credi- 
bly ascertained  that  I  am  the  man  who  broke  into  his  houso 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT.         I'J 

last  year,  after  having  made  love  to  his  housemaid,  and  stoio 
his  writing-desk  and  plate — else,  why  should  a  burglar  steal 
family-let  lers,  if  he  had  not  some  interest  in  them  1 — And  be- 
fore the  matter  dies  away,  some  M'orthy  old  gentleman,  who 
has  not  spoken  to  a  working-man  since  he  left  his  living, 
thirty  years  ago,  and  hates  a  radical  as  he  doer,  the  Pope,  re- 
ceives two  or  three  anonymous  letters,  condoling  with  him 
on  the  cruel  betrayal  of  his  confidence — base  ingratitude  for 
undeserved  condescension,  dec,  &c.;  and,  perhaps,  with  an 
inclosure  of  good  advice  for  his  lovely  daughter. 

But,  wherever  D is,  we  arrived  there  ;  and  with  a 

beating  heart,  I — and  I  now  suspect  my  cousin  also — walk- 
ed up  the  sunny  slopes,  where  the  old  convent  had  stood, 
now  covered  with  wailed  gardens  and  noble  timber  trees,  and 
crowned  by  the  richly-fretted  towers  of  the  cathedral,  whioh 
we  had  seen,  for  the  last  twenty  miles,  growing  gradu- 
ally larger  and  more  distinct  across  the  level  flat.  "  Ely  V 
"  No  ;  Lincoln  !"  "  Oh  !  but  really,  it's  just  as  much  like 
Peterborough  I"  Never  mind,  my  dear  reader ;  the  essence 
of  the  fact,  as  I  think,  lies  not  quite  so  much  in  the  name  of 
the  place,  as  in  what  was  done  there — to  which  T,  with  all 
the  little  respect  which  I  can  muster,  entreat  your  attention. 

It  is  not  irom  false  shame  at  my  necessary  ignorance,  but 
from  a  fear  lest  I  should  bore  my  readers  with  what  seems  to 
them  trivial,  that  I  refrain  from  dilating  on  many  a  thing, 
which  struck  me  as  curious  in  this  my  first  visit  to  the  house 
of  an  English  gentleman.  I  must  say,  however,  though  1 
suppcse  that  it  will  be  numbered,  at  least,  among  trite  re- 
marks, if  not  among  trivial  ones,  that  the  wealth  around  me 
certainly  struck  mo,  as  it  has  others,  as  not  very  much  in 
keeping  with  the  office  of  one  who  professed  to  be  a  minister 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  I  salved  over  that 
feeling,  being  desirous  to  see  every  thing  in  the  brio;htest  light, 
with  the  recollection  that  the  dean  had  a  private  fortune  of 
his  own  ;  though  it  did  seem,  at  moments,  that  if  a  man  has 
solemnly  sworn  to  devote  himself,  body  and  soul,  to  the  cause 
of  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  nation,  that  vow  might  be  not 
unfairly  construed  to  include  his  money,  as  well  as  his  talents, 
time,  and  health  ;  unless,  perhaps,  money  is  considered  by 
spiritual  persons  as  so  worthless  a  thing,  that  it  is  not  fit  to 
be  given  to  God — a  notion  which  might  seem  to  explain  how 
a  really  pious  and  universally  respected  archbishop — living 
within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  one  of  the  worst  infernos  of 
destitution,  disease,  filth,  and  profligacy — can  yet  find  it  iq 


150  ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

his  heart  to  save  Xl20,000,  out  of  church  revenues,  and 
leave  it  to  his  family  ;  though  it  will  not  explain  how  Irish 
bishops  can  reconcile  it  to  their  consciences  to  leave  behind 
them,  one  and  all,  large  fortunes — for  I  suppose  from  fifty  to 
a  hundred  thousand  pounds  is  something — saved  from  fees 
and  tithes,  taken  from  the  pockets  of  a  Roman  Catholic  pop- 
ulation, whom  they  have  been  put  there  to  convert  to  Protest- 
antism, for  the  last  three  hundred  years — with  what  success, 
all  the  world  knows.  Of  course,  it  is  a  most  impertinent,  and 
almost  a  blasphemous  thing,  for  a  working-man  to  daro  to 
mention  such  subjects.  Is  it  not  "  speaking  evil  of  dignities  ?" 
Strange,  by-the-by,  that  merely  to  mention  facts,  without  note  or 
comment,  should  be  always  called  "  speaking  evil  1"  Does  not 
that  argue  ill  for  the  facts  themselves  ?  AVorking-men  think 
so  ;  but  what  matter  what  "  the  swinish  multitude"  think  ? 

When  I  speak  of  wealth,  I  do  not  mean  that  the  dean's 
household  would  have  been  considered  by  his  own  class  at  all 
too  luxurious.  He  would  have  been  said,  I  suppose,  to  live 
in  a  "  quiet,  comfortable,  gentlemanlike  way" — "  every  thing 
very  plain  and  very  good."  It  included  a  butler — a  quiet, 
good-natured  old  man — who  ushered  us  into  our  bedrooms  ; 
a  footman,  who  opened  the  door — a  sort  of  animal  for  which 
I  have  an  extreme  aversion — young,  silly,  conceited,  over-fed, 
llorid — who  looked  just  the  man  to  sell  his  soul  for  a  livery, 
twice  as  much  food  as  he  needed,  and  the  opportunity  of  un- 
limited flirtations  with  the  maids  ;  and  a  coachman,  very  like 
other  coachmen,  whom  I  saw  taking  a  pair  of  handsome  car- 
riage-horses out  to  exercise,  as  we  opened  the  gate. 

The  old  man,  silently  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  unpacked 
for  me  my  little  portmanteau  (lent  me  by  my  cousin),  and 
placed  my  things  neatly  in  various  drawers — went  down, 
brought  up  a  jug  of  hot  water,  put  it  on  the  washing-table — 
told  me  that  dinner  was  at  six — that  the  half-hour  bell  rang 
at  half-past  five — and  that,  if  I  wanted  any  thing,  the  foot- 
man would  answer  the  bell  (bells  seeming  a  prominent  idea 
in  his  theory  of  the  universe) — and  so  left  me,  wondering  at 
the  strange  fact  that  free  men,  with  free  wills,  do  sell  them- 
selves, by  the  hundred  thousand,  to  perform  menial  offices  for 
other  men,  not  for  love,  but  for  money ;  becoming,  to  define 
them  strictly,  bell-answering  animals  :  and  are  honest,  happy, 
contented,  in  such  a  life.  A  man-servant,  a  soldier,  and  a 
Jesuit,  are  to  me  the  three  great  wonders  of  humanity — three 
forms  of  moral  suicide,  for  which  I  never  had  the  slightest 
gleam  of  sympathy,  or  even  comprehension. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  VOET.  151 

At  last  we  went  down  to  dinner,  after  roy  personal  adora- 
iients  had  been  carefully  superintended  by  my  cousin,  who 
eave  me,  over- and -above,  various  warnings  and  exhortations 
as  to  my  behavior ;  which,  of  course,  took  due  effect,  in 
making  me  as  nervous,  constrained,  and  affected,  as  possible. 
When  I  ap[)eared  in  the  drawing-rorn,  I  was  kindly  wel- 
comed by  the  dean,  the  two  ladies,  and  Lord  Lynedale. 

But  as  I  stood  fidgeting  and  blushing,  sticking  my  arms, 
and  legs,  and  head,  into  all  sorts  of  quaint  positions — trying 
one  attitude,  and  thinking  it  looked  awkward,  and  so  exchang- 
ing it  for  another,  more  awkward  still — my  eye  fell  suddenly 
on  a  slip  of  paper,  which  had  conveyed  itself,  I  never  knew 
how,  upon  the  pages  of  the  Illustrated  Book  of  Ballads,  which 
I  Avas  turning  over  : 

"  Be  natural,  and  you  will  be  gentlemanlike.  If  you  wish 
others  to  forget  your  rank,  do  not  forget  it  yourself.  If  you 
wish  others  to  remember  you  with  pleasure,  forget  yourself  ; 
and  be  just  what  God  has  made  you." 

I  could  not  help  fancying  that  the  lesson,  whether  inten- 
tionally or  not,  was  meant  for  me ;  and  a  passing  impulse 
made  me  take  up  the  slip,  fold  it  together,  and  put  it  in  my 
bosom.  Perhaps  it  was  Lilhan's  hand-writing !  I  looked 
round  at  the  ladies  ;  but  their  faces  were  each  buried  behind 
a  book. 

We  went  in  to  dinner  ;  and  to  my  delight,  I  sat  next  to  my 
godde.ss,  while  opposite  me  was  my  cousin.  Luckily  I  had 
got  some  directions  from  him  as  to  what  to  say  and  do,  when 
my  wonders,  the  servants,  thrust  eatables  and  drinkables  over 
my  shoulders. 

Lillian  and  my  cousin  chatted  away  about  church-archi- 
tecture, and  the  restorations  which  were  going  on  at  the  cathe- 
dral :  while  I,  for  the  first-half  of  dinner,  feasted  my  eyes  with 
the  sight  of  a  beauty,  in  which  I  seemed  to  discover  every 
moment  some  nev/  excellence.  Every  time  I  looked  up  at 
her,  my  eyes  dazzled,  my  face  burnt,  my  heart  sank,  and  soft 
thrills  ran  through  every  nerve.  And  yet,  Heaven  knows, 
my  emotions  were  as  pure  as  those  of  an  infant.  It  was 
beauty  longed  for,  and  found  at  last,  which  I  adored  as  a 
thing  not  to  be  possessed,  but  worshiped.  The  desire,  even 
the  thought,  of  calling  her  my  own,  never  crossed  my  mind. 
I  felt  that  I  could  gladly  die,  if  by  death  I  could  purchase 
the  permission  to  watch  her.  I  understood,  then,  and  forever 
after,  the  pure  devotion  of  the  old  knights  and  troubadours  of 
chivalry.     1  seemed  to  myself  to  be  their  brother — one  of  the 


152  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POUT. 

holy  guild  of  poet-lovers.  I  was  a  new  Petrarch,  basking  (U 
the  light-rays  of  a  new  Laura.  I  gazed,  and  gazed,  and  foi  iid 
new  life  in  gazing,  and  was  content. 

But  my  simple  bliss  was  perfected,  when  she  suddenly 
turned  to  me,  and  began  asking  me  questions  on  the  very 
points  on  which  I  was  best  able  to  answer.  She  talked  about 
poetry,  Tennyson  and  Wordsworth  ;  asked  me  if  I  understood 
Browning's  Sordello  ;  and  then  comforted  me,  after  my  stam- 
mering confession  that  I  did  not,  by  telling  me  she  Avas  de- 
lighted to  hear  that ;  for  she  did  not  understand  it  either,  and 
it  was  so  pleasant  to  have  a  companion  in  ignorance.  Then 
she  asked,  if  I  was  much  struck  with  the  buildings  in  Cam- 
bridge ? — had  they  inspired  me  v.'ith  any  verses  yet  ? — I  was 
bound  to  write  something  about  them — and  so  on  ;  making  the 
most  commonplace  remarks  look  brilliant,  from  the  ease  and 
liveliness  with  which  they  were  spoken,  and  the  tact  with  which 
they  were  made  pleasant  to  the  listener  :  while  I  wondered  at 
my.self,  ibr  enjoying  from  her  lips  the  flippant,  sparkling  tattle, 
which  had  hitherto  made  young  women  to  me  objects  of  un- 
speakable dread,  to  be  escaped  by  crossing  the  street,  hiding  be- 
hind doors,  and  rushing  blindly  into  back-yards  and  coal-holes. 
The  ladies  left  the  room :  and  I,  with  Lillian's  face  glow- 
ing bright  in  my  imagination,  as  the  crimson  orb  remains  on 
the  retina  of  the  closed  eye,  after  looking  intently  at  the  sun, 
sat  listening  to  a  pleasant  discussion  between  the  dean  and 
the  nobleman,  about  some  country  in  the  East,  whioh  they 
had  both  visited,  and  greedily  devouring  all  the  new  facts 
which  they  incidentally  brought  forth  out  oi  the  treasures  of 
their  highly-cultivated  minds. 

I  was  agreeably  surprised  (don't  laugh,  reader)  to  find  that 
I  was  allowed  to  drink  water  ;  and  that  the  other  men  drank 
not  more  than  a  glass  or  two  of  wine,  after  the  ladies  had  re- 
tired. I  had,  somehow,  got  both  lords  and  deans  associated 
in  my  mind  with  infinite  swiUings  of  port  wine,  and  bacchan- 
alian orgies,  and  sat  down,  at  first,  in  much  fear  and  trem- 
bling, lest  I  should  be  compelled  to  join,  under  penalties  of 
salt-and-water  ;  but  I  had  made  up  my  mind,  stoutly,  to  bear 
any  thing  rather  than  get  drunk  ;  and  so  I  had  all  the  merit 
of  a  temperance-martyr,  without  any  of  its  disagreeables. 

"Well,"  said  I  to  myself,  smiling  in  sjiirit,  "what  would 
my  Chartist  friends  say  if  they  saw  me  here  ]  Not  even 
Crossthwaite  himself  could  find  a  flaw  in  the  appreciation  of 
merit  for  its  own  sake,  the  courtesy  and  condescension — ah  ' 
but  he  M'ould  complain  of  it,  simply  for  being  condcecension.* 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  153 

But,  alter  all,  what  else  could  it  be  ?  Were  not  these  men 
more  experienced,  more  learned,  older  than  myself?  '^Phey 
were  my  superiors  ;  it  was  in  vain  lor  me  to  attempt  to  hide 
it  from  myself  But  the  wonder  was,  that  they  themselves 
were  the  ones  to  appear  utterly  unconscious  of  it.  They  treat- 
ed me  as  an  equal ;  they  welcomed  me — the  young  viscount 
and  the  learned  dean — on  the  broad  ground  of  a  common  hu- 
manity ;  as  I  believe  hundreds  more  of  their  class  would  do, 
if  we  did  not  ourselves  take  a  pride  in  estranging  them  from 
us — telling  them  that  fraternization  between  our  classes  is 
impossible,  and  then  cursing  them  for  not  fraternizing  with 
us.     But  of  that,  more  hereafter. 

At  all  events,  now  my  bliss  was  perfect.  No  !  I  was  wrong 
— a  higher  enjoyment  than  all  awaited  me,  when,  going  into 
the  drawing-room,  I  found  Lillian  singing  at  the  piano.  I  had 
no  idea  that  music  was  capable  of  expressing  and  conveying 
emotions  so  intense  and  ennobling.  My  experience  was  confined 
to  street-music,  and  to  the  bawling  at  the  chapel.  And,  as  yet, 
Mr.  Hullah  had  not  risen  into  a  power  more  enviable  than  that 
of  kings,  and  given  to  every  workman  a  free  entrance  into  the 
magic  world  of  harmony  and  melody,  where  he  may  prove  his 
brotherhood  with  Mozart  and  Weber,  Beethoven  and  Men- 
delssohn. Great  unconscious  demagogue  ! — leader  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  laborer  in  the  cause  of  divine  equality  I — thy  reward 
is  with  the  Father  of  the  people  I 

The  luscious  softness  of  the  Italian  airs  overcame  me  with 
a  delicious  enervation.  Every  note,  every  interval,  each  shade 
of  expression  spoke  to  me — I  kncAV  not  Avhat :  and  yet  they 
spoke  to  my  heart  of  hearts.  A  spirit  out  of  the  infinite 
heaven  seemed  calling  to  my  spirit,  which  longed  to  an.swer 
— and  was  dumb — and  could  only  vent  itself  in  tears,  which 
welled  unconsciously  forth,  and  eased  my  heart  from  the  pain 
ful  tension  of  excitement. 

*  .      .  *  *  * 
Her  voice  is  hovering  o'er  my  soul — it  lingers, 

O'ershadowing  it  with  soft  and  thrilling  wings; 
The  blood  and  life  within  those  snowy  fingers 

Teach  witchcraft  to  the  instrumental  strings. 
My  brain  is  wild,  my  breath  comes  quick, 

The  blood  is  listening  in  my  frame ; 
And  thronging  shadows,  fast  and  quick, 

Fall  on  my  overflowing  eyes. 
My  heart  is  quivering  Wke  a  name  ; 

As  morning-dew  that  in  the  sunbeam  dies, 

I  am  dissolved  in  these  consuming  ecstasiet. 

*  *  ♦  * 


154  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

The  cljLrkJAd3t^.MissStaun^^^^^  as  I  ought  to  call  her,  saw 
my  emotion,  and,  as  I  thought  unkindly,  checked  the  cause 
of  it  at  once. 

"  Pray  do  not  give  us  any  more  of  those  die-away  Italian 
airs,  Lillian.  Sing  something  manful,  German  or  English,  or 
any  thing  you  like,  except  those  sentimental  wailings." 

Lillian  stopped,  took  another  book,  and  commenced,  after 
a  short  prelude,  one  of  my  own  songs.  Surprise  and  pleasure 
overpowered  me  more  utterly  than  the  soft  southern  melodies 
had  done.  I  was  on  the  point  of  springing  up  and  leaving 
the  room,  when  my  raptures  were  checked  by  our  host,  who 
turned  round,  and  stopped  short  in  an  oration  on  the  geology 
of  Upper  Egypt. 

'■What's  that  about  brotherhood  and  freedom,  Lillian? 
We  don't  want  any  thing  of  that  kind  here." 

"  It's  only  a  popular  London  song,  papa,"  answered  she, 
with  an  arch  smile. 

"  Or  likely  to  become  so,"  added  Miss  Staunton,  in  her 
marked  dogmatic  tone. 

"  I'm  very  sorry  for  London,  then."  And  he  turned  to 
the  deserts. 


/ 


CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  MAN  OF  SCIENCE. 

After  breakfast  the  next  morning,  Lillian  retired,  saying 
laughingly,  that  she  must  go  and  see  after  her  clothing-club 
and  her  dear  old  women  at  the  almshouse,  which,  of  course, 
made  me  look  on  her  as  more  an  angel  than  ever.  And 
while  George  was  left  with  Lord  Lynedale,  I  was  summonedj/ 
to  a  private  conference  with  the  dean  in  his  study.  f 

I  found  him  in  a  room  lined  with  cabinets  of  curiosities, 
and  hung  all  over  with  strange  horns,  bones  and  slabs  of  fos- 
sils. But  I  was  not  allowed  much  time  to  look  about  me  ; 
for  he  commenced  at  once  on  the  subject  of  my  studies,  by 
asking  me  whether  I  was  willing  to  prepare  myself  for  the 
university  by  entering  on  the  study  of  mathematics  ■? 

I  felt  so  intense  a  repugnance  to  them,  that  at  the  risk  of 
offending  him — perhaps,  for  aught  I  knew,  fatally-  J  dared 
to  demur.     He  smiled  : 

"  I  am  convinced,  young  man,  that  even  if  you  intended  to 
follow  poetry  as  a  profession — and  a  very  poor  one  you-  will 
find  it — yet  you  will  never  attain  to  any  excellence  therein, 
without  far  stricter  mental  discipline  than  any  to  which  you 
have  been  accustomed.  That  is  why  I  abominate  our  mod 
ern  poets.  They  talk  about  the  glory  of  the  poetic  vocation, 
as  if  they  intended  to  be  kings  and  world-makers,  and  all  the 
while  they  indulge  themselves  in  the  most  loose  and  desultory 
habits  of  thought.  Sir,  if  they  really  believed  their  own  gran- 
diloquent assumptions,  they  would  feel  that  the  responsibility 
of  their  mental  training  was  greater,  not  less,  than  any  one's 
else.  Like  the  Quakers,  they  fancy  that  they  honor  inspira- 
tion by  supposing  it  to  be  only  extraordinary  and  paroxysmic  : 
the  true  poet,  like  the  rational  Christian,  believing  that  in- 
spiration is  continual  and  orderly,  that  it  reveals  harmonious 
laws,  not  merely  excites  sudden  emotions.  You  understand 
me  ?" 

I  did,  tolerably  ;  and  subsequent  conversations  with  him 
fixed  the  thoughts  sufficiently  in  my  mind,  to  make  me  pretty 
sure  that  I  am  giving  a  faithful  verbal  transcript  of  them. 

"  You  must  study  some  science.     Have  you  read  any  logic  1" 

I  mentioned  Watts'  "  Logic,"  and  Locke  "  On  the   use 


156  ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POE'I. 

of  the  Understanding" — two  books  well  known  to  reading 
artisans. 

"Ah,"  he  said;  "such  books  are  very  well,  but  they  are 
merely  popular.  '  Aristotle,'  '  Emitter  on  Induction,'  and 
Kant's  'Prolegomena'  and  'Logic' — when  you  had  read  them 
some  seven  or  eight  times  over,  you  might  consider  yourseli 
as  knowing  somewhat  about  the  matter." 

"  I  have  read  a  little  about  induction  in  Whately." 
"  Ah — very  good  book,  but  popular.     Did  you  find  that 
your  method  of  thought  received  any  benefit  from  it  ?" 

"  The  truth  is — I  do  not  know  whether  I  can  quite  express 
myself  clearly — but  logic,  like  mathematics,  seems  to  tell  me 
too  little  about  things.  It  does  not  enlarge  my  knowledge 
of  man  or  nature  ;  and  tliose  are  what  I  thirst  for.  And  you 
must  remember — I  hope  1  am  not  wrong  in  saying  it — that 
the  case  of  a  man  of  your  class,  Avho  has  the  power  of  travel- 
ing, of  reading  v/hat  he  will,  and  seeing  what  he  will,  is  very 
different  from  that  of  an  artisan,  whose  chances  of  observa- 
tion are  so  sadly  limited.  You  must  forgive  us,  if  we  are  un- 
willing to  spend  our  time  over  books  which  tell  us  nothing 
about  the  great  universe  outside  the  shop-windows." 

He  smiled  compassionately.     "  Very  true,  my  boy.     There 
are  two  branches  of  study,  then,  before  you,  and  by  either  of 
them  a  competent  subsistence  is  possible,  with  good  interest. 
.Philology  is  one.     But  before  you  could  an-ive  at  those  depths 
in  it  which  connect  with  ethnology,  history,  and  geography, 
you  would  require  a  lifetime  of  study.      There  remains  yet 
another.     I  see  you  stealing  glances  at  those  natural  curiosi- 
ties.    In  the  study  of  them,  you  would  find,  as  I  believe  more 
.   and  more   daily,  a  mental  discipline   superior  even   to  that 
'   which  language  or  mathematics  give      If  I  had  been  blest 
!,  with  a  son — but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there — it  was  my 
\  intention  to  have  educated  him  almost  entirely  as  a  natural- 

Iist.  I  think  I  shor.ld  like  to  try  the  experiment  on  a  young 
man  like  yourself" 

Sandy  Mackaye's  definition  of  legislation  for  the  masses, 
"  Fiat  experimentum  in  corpore  vili,"  rose  up  in  my  thoaghts, 
and,  half  uncon.sciously,  passed  my  lips.  The  good  old  maii 
only  smiled. 

"  That  is  not  my  reason,  INIr.  Locke.  I  should  choose,  by 
preference,  a  man  of  your  class  for  experiments,  not  because 
the  nature  is  coarser,  or  less  precious  in  the  scale  of  creation, 
but  because  I  have  a  notion,  for  winch,  like  many  others,  ] 
have  been  very  much  laughed  at,  tliat  you  are  less  sophi.sti 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  \57 

caled,  more  simple  and  fresh  from  nature's  laboratory,  than 
the  young  persons  of  the  upper  classes,  who  begin  iiom  the 
nursery  to  be  more  or  less  trimmed  up,  and  painted  over  by 
the  artificial  state  of  society — a  very  excellent  state,  mind, 
Mr.  Locke.  Civilization  is,  next  to  Christianity  of  course,  the 
highest  blessing;  but  not  so  good  a  state  for  trying  anthropo- 
logical experiments  on." 

J  assured  him  of  my  great  desire  to  be  the  subject  of  such 
an  experiment ;  and  Nvas  encouraged  by  his  smile  to  tell  him 
something  about  my  intense  love  for  natural  objects,  the  mys- 
terious pleasure  which  I  had  taken,  from  my  boyhood,  in  trying 
to  classify  them,  and  my  visits  to  the  British  Museum,  lor 
the  purpose  of  getting  at  some  general  knowledge  of  the  nat- 
ural groups. 

"Excellent,"  he  said,  "young  man;  the  very  best  sign  1 
have  yet  seen  in  you.  And  what  have  you  read  on  these 
subjects  ?"  I  mentioned  several  books :  Bingley,  Bewick, 
"Humboldt's  Travels,","  "  The  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,"  vari- 
ous scattered  articles  in  the  Penny  and  Saturday  Maga- 
zines, &c.,  &c. 

"  Ah  I"  he  said,  "  popular — you  will  find,  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  give  you  my  experience — " 

I  assured  him  that  I  was  only  too  much  honored — and  ] 
truly  felt  so.  I  knew  myself  to  be  in  the  presence  of  my 
rightful  superior — my  master  on  that  very  point  of  education 
which  I  idolized.  Every  sentence  which  he  spoke  gave  me 
fresh  light  on  some  matter  or  other ;  and  I  felt  a  worship  for 
him,  totally  irrespective  of  any  vulgar  and  slavish  respect  for 
his  rank  or  wealth.  The  working-man  has  no  want  for  real 
reverence.  Mr.  Carlyle's  being  a  "  gentleman,"  has  not  in-  /jL 
jured  his  influence  with  the  people.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  artisan's  intense  longing  to  find  his  real  lords  and  guides, 
which  makes  him  despise  and  execrate  his  sham  ones. 
Whereof  let  society  take  note. 

"Then,"  continued  he,  "your  plan  is  to  take  up  some  one 
section  of  the  subject,  and  thoroughly  exhaust  that.  Univer- 
sal laws  manifest  themselves  only  by  particular  instances. 
They  say,  man  is  the  microcosm,  Mr.  Locke  ;  but  the  man 
of  science  finds  every  worm  and  beetle  a  microcosm  in  its 
way.  It  exemplifies,  directly  or  indirectly,  every  physical  law 
in  the  universe,  though  it  may  not  be  two  lines  long.  It  ia 
not  only  a  part,  but  a  mirror,  of  the  great  whole.  It  has  a 
definite  relation  to  the  whole  world,  and  the  whole  world  has 
a  relation  to  it.     Really,  by-the-by,  I  can  not  give  you  a  bet 


158  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

ter  instance  of  what  I  mean,  than  in  my  little  diatribe  on  the 
Geryon  Trifurcifer,  a  small  reptile  which  I  found,  some  years 
ago,  inhabiting  the  mud  of  the  salt-lakes  of  Balkhan,  which 
fills  up  a  long-desired  link  between  the  Chelonia  and  the 
Perenni  branchiate  Batrachians,  and,  as  I  think,  though  Pro- 
fessor Brown  differs  from  me,  connects  both  with  the  Herb- 
ivorous Cetacea.  Professor  Brown  is  an  exceedingly  talented 
man,  but  a  little  too  cautious  in  accepting  any  one's  theo- 
ries but  his  own.  There  it  is,"  he  said,  as  he  drew  out  of  a 
draM'er  a  little  pamphlet  of  some  thirty  pages — "  an  old  man's 
darling.  I  consider  that  book  the  outcome  of  thirteen  years' 
labor." 

"It  must  be  very  deep,"  I  replied,  "to  have  been  worth 
such  long-continued  study." 

"Oh  I  science  is  her  own  reward.  There  is  hardly  a  great 
physical  law  which  I  have  not  brought  to  bear  on  the  subject 
of  that  one  small  animal ;  and  above  all — what  is  in  itself 
worth  a  life's  labor — I  have,  I  believe,  discovered  two  entirely 
new  laws  of  my  own,  though  one  of  them,  by-the-by,  has  been 
broached  by  Professor  Brown  since,  in  his  lectures.  He  might 
have  mentioned  my  name  in  connection  with  the  subject,  for 
I  certainly  imparted  my  ideas  to  him,  two  years  at  least  be- 
fore the  delivery  of  those  lectures  of  his.  Professor  Brown  is 
a  very  great  man,  certainly,  and  a  very  good  man,  but  not 
quite  so  original  as  is  generally  supposed.  Still,  a  scientific 
man  must  expect  his  little  disappointments  and  injustices.  If 
you  were  behind  the  scenes  in  the  scientific  world,  I  can  as- 
sure you,  you  would  find  as  much  party-spirit,  and  unfairness, 
and  jealousy,  and  emulation  there,  as  any  where  else.  Human 
nature,  human  nature,  every  where  I" 

I  said  nothing,  but  thought  the  more  ;  and  took  the  book, 
promising  to  study  it  carefully. 

"There  is  Cuvier's  'Animal  Kingdom,'  and  a  dictionary 
of  scientific  terms  to  help  you  ;  and  mind,  it  must  be  got  up 
thoroughly,  for  I  purpose  to  set  you  an  examination  or  two  in 
it,  a  few  days  hence.  Then  I  shall  find  out  whether  you  know 
what  is  worth  all  the  information  in  the  world." 

"  What  is  that,  sir?" 

"  The  art  of  getting  information — artcm  cUscendi,  Mr. 
Locke,  wherewith  the  world  is  badly  provided  just  now,  as  it 
is  overstocked  with  the  artcm  Icgcndl — tlie  knack  of  running 
the  eye  over  books,  and  I'aneying  that  it  understands  them, 
because  it  can  talk  about  them.  You  can  not  play  that  trick 
with  my  Geryon  Trifurcifer,  I  assure  you ;  he  i?  as  dry  and 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  159 

tough  as  his  name.     But,  beheve  me,  he  is  worth  mastering, 
not  because  he  is  mine,  but  simply  because  he  is  tough." 
I  promised  all  diligence. 

"  Very  good.  And  be  sure,  if  you  intend  to  be  a  poet  foi 
these  days  (and  I  really  think  yuu  have  some  faculty  for  it), 
you  must  become  a  scientific  man.  Science  has  made  vast 
strides,  and  introduced  entirely  new  modes  of  looking  at  na- 
ture ;  and  poets  must  live  up  to  the  age.  I  never  read  a  word 
of  Goethe's  verse,  but  1  am  convinced  that  he  must  be  the 
great  poet  of  the  day  ;  just  because  he  is  the  only  one  who 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  go  into  the  details  of  practical  science. 
And,  in  the  mean  time,  I  will  give  you  a  lesson  myself.  I 
see  you  are  longing  to  know  the  contents  of  these  cabinets. 
You  shall  assist  me,  by  writing  out  the  names  of  this  lot  of 
shells,  just  come  from  Australia,  which  I  am  now  going  to 
arrange." 
p..  ""l  set  to  work  at  once,  under  his  directions,  and  passed 
^'  that  morning,  and  the  two  or  three  following,  delightfully. 
But  T  question  whether  the  good  dean  would  have  been  ^\e\l 
satisfied,  had  he  known  how  all  his  scientific  teaching  con 
firmed  my  democratic  opinions.  The  mere  fact,  that  1  could 
understand  these  things  when  they  were  set  before  me,  as 
well  as  any  one  else,  was  to  me  a  simple  demonstration  of  the 
equality  in  worth,  and  therefore  in  privilege,  of  all  classes 
It  may  be  answered,  that  I  had  no  right  to  argue  from  my- 
self to  the  mob  ;  and  that  other  working  geniuses  have  no 
right  to  demand  universal  enfranchisement  for  their  whole 
class,  just  because  they,  the  exceptions,  are  fit  for  it.  But 
surely  it  is  hard  to  call  such  an  error,  if  it  be  one,  "  the  inso- 
lent assumption  of  democratic  conceit,"  &c.,  &;c.  Does  it  not 
look  more  like  the  humility  of  men  who  are  unwilling  to 
assert  for  themselves  peculiar  excellence,  peculiar  privileges  ; 
who,  like  the  apc^tles  of  old,  want  no  glory,  save  that  which 
they  can  not  share  with  the  outcast  and  the  slave  ?  Let 
society,  among  other  matters,  take  note  of  that. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

CULTIVATED  WOMEN. 

I  WAS  thus  brought  in  contact,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life, 
with  two  exquisite  specimens  of  cultivated  womanhood  ;   and 
they  naturally,  as  the  reader  may  well  suppose,  almost  en- 
tirely engrossed  my  thoughts  and  interest. 
J     Lillian,  for  so  I  must  call  her,  became  daily  more  and  more 
/agreeable  ;  and  tried,  as  I  fancied,  to  draw  me  out,  and  show 
me  off  lo  the  best  advantage  ;  whether   from  the  desire  of 
pleasing  herself,  or  pleasing  me,  I  know  not,  and  do  not  wish 
lo   know — but  the  consequences  to  my   boyish  vanity  were 
I  such  as  are  more  easy  to  imagine,  than  pleasant  to  describe. 
I  Miss  Staunton,  on  the  other  hand,  became,  I  thought,  more 
1  and  more  unpleasant  ;  not  that  she  ever,  for  a  moment,  out- 
stepped  the   bounds  of  the  most   perfect  courtesy  ;  but   her 
manner,  which  was  soft  to  no  one  except  to  Lord  Lynedale, 
was,  when  she  spoke  to  me,  especially  dictatorial  and  abrupt. 
She  seemed  to  make  a  point  of  carping  at  chance  words  of 
mine,  and  of  setting  me  down  suddenly,  by  breaking  in  with 
,  some  severe,  pithy  observation,  on  conversations  to  which  she 
/  had   been   listening  unobserved.      She   seemed,  too,  to  view 
'  with  dislike  any  thing  like  cordiality  between  me  and  Lillian 
— a  dislike,  which  I   was  actually  at  moments  vaia  enough 
(such  a  creature  is  man  I)  to  attribute  to — jealousy  I  1 1  till  1 
began  to  suspect  and  hate  her,  as  a  proud,  harsh,  and  exclu- 
sive aristocrat.     And  my  suspicion  and  hatred  received  their 
confirmation,  M'hen,  one  morning,  after  an  evening  even  more 
charming  than  usual,  Lillian  came  down,  reserved,  peevish, 
all  but  sulky,  and  showed  that  that  bright  heaven  of  sunny 
features  had  room  in  it  for  a  cloud,  and  that  an  ugly  one. 
But  I,  poor  fool,  only  pitied  her ;  made  up  my  mind  that 
some  one  had  ill-used  her ;   and  looked  on  her  as  a  mavtyi* — 
perhaps  to  that  harsh  cousin  of  hers. 

That  day  was  taken  up  with  writing  out  answers  tn  the 
dean's  searching  questions  on  his  pamphlet,  in  which,  I  be- 
lieve, I  acquitted  myself  tolerably  ;  and  he  seemed  far  more 
satisfied  with  my  commentary,  than  I  was  with  his  text. 
He  seemed  to  ignore  utterly  any  thing  like  religion,  or  even 
the  very  notion  of  God,  in  his  chains  of  argument.  Nature 
was  spoken  of  as  the  wilier  and  producer  of  all  the  marvels 
which    he   described  ;   and  every    word   in  the  book,  to    mv 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  rOE'J.  j6I 

astouislimeut,  mifilit  have  been  written,  just  as  easily,  Ly  an 
Atheist,  as  by  a  dignitary  of  the  Church  of  England. 

I  could  not  help,  that  evening,  hinting  this  delect,  as  deli- 
cately  as  I  could,  to  my  good  host,  and  was  somewhat  sur- 
prised to  find  that  he  did  not  consider  it  a  defect  at  all. 

"  I  am  in  nowise  anxious  to  weaken  the  antithesis  between 
natural  and  revealed  religion.  Science  may  help  the  former, 
but  it  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  latter.  She 
stands  on  her  own  ground,  has  her  own  laws,  and  is  her  owai 
reward.  Christianity  is  a  matter  of  faith  and  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Church.  It  must  not  go  out  of  its  way  ibr  science, 
and  science  must  not  go  out  of  her  way  ibr  it ;  and  where 
they  seem  to  difler,  it  is  our  duty  to  believe  that  they  are 
reconcilable  by  fuller  knowledge,  but  not  to  clip  truth  in  order 
to  make  it  match  with  doctrine." 

"  Mr.   Carlyle,"  said  Miss  Staunton,  in  her  abrupt  way,  ' 
"  can  see  that  the  God  of  Nature  is  the  God  of  man." 

"  Nobody  denies  that,  my  dear." 

"  Except  in  every  word  and  action  ;  else  why  do  they  not 
write  about  Nature  as  if  it  was  the  expression  of  a  living, 
loving  spirit,  not  merely  a  dead  machine'?" 

"It  may  be  very  easy,  my  dear,  for  a  Deist  like  Mr.  Car- 
lyle to  see  his  God  in  Nature  ;  but  if  he  would  accept  the 
truihs  of  Christianity,  he  would  find  that  there  were  deeper 
my-teries  in  them  than  trees  and  animals  can  explain." 

•'  Pardon  me,  sir,"  I  said,  "but  I  think  that  a  very  large 
portion  of  thoughtful  working-men  agree  with  you,  though, 
in  their  case,  that  opinion  has  only  increased  their  difficulties 
about  Christianity.  They  complain  that  they  can  not  iden- 
tify the  God  of  the  Bible  with  the  God  of  the  world  around 
them  ;  and  one  of  their  great  complaints  against  Christianity 
is,  that  it  demands  assent  to  mysteries  which  are  independent 
of"  and  even  contradictory  to  the  laws  of  Nature. 

The  old  man  was  silent. 

"Mr.  Carlyle  is  no  Deist,"  said  Miss  Staunton;  "and  I 
am  sure,  that  unless  the  truths  of  Christianity  contrive  soon 
to  get  themselves  justified  by  the  laws  of  science,  the  higher 
orders  will  believe  in  them  as  little  as  Mr.  Locke  informs  us 
that  the  working  classes  do." 

"  You  prophesy  confidently,  my  darling." 

"  Oh,  Eleanor  is  in  one  of  her  prophetic  moods  to-night,' 
said  Lillian,  slyly.      "She  has  been  foretelling  me  I  know  not 
what  misery  and  misfortune,  just  because  I  choose  to  amuse 
myself  in  my  own  way." 

And  she  gave  another  sly,  pouting  look  at  Eleanor,  and 


Ife2  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOU  AND  POLT. 

then  called  me  to  look  over  some  engravings,  chatting  ovei 
them  so  charmingly ! — and  stealing,  every  now  and  then,  a 
pretty,  saucy  look  at  her  cousin,  which  seemed  to  say,  "I  shall 
do  what  I  like,  in  spite  of  your  predictions." 

This  confirmed  my  suspicions  that  Eleanor  had  been  trying 
to  separate  us ;  and  the  suspicion  received  a  further  corrobo- 
ration, indirect  and  perhaps  very  unfair,  from  the  lecture  which 
I  got  from  my  cousin,  after  I  went  up-stairs. 

He  had  been  flattering  me  very  much  lately  about  "the 
impression"  I  was  making  on  the  family,  and  tormenting  me 
by  compliments  on  the  clever  way  in  wliich  I  "played  my 
cards  ;"  and  when  I  denied  indignantly  any  such  intention, 
patting  me  on  the  back,  and  laughing  me  down  in  a  knowing 
way,  as  much  as  to  say,  that  he  was  not  to  be  taken  in  by  my 
prolbssions  of  simplicity.  He  seemed  to  judge  every  one  by  him- 
self, and  to  have  no  notion  of  any  middle  characters,  between 
the  mere  greenhorn  and  deliberate  schemer.  But  to-night, 
after  commencing  Avith  the  usual  compliments,  he  went  on : 

"  Now,  first  let  me  give  you  one  hint,  and  be  thankful  for 
it.  Mind  your  game  with  that  Eleanor — Miss  Staunton 
She  is  a  regular  tyrant,  I  happen  to  know;  a  strong-minded 
woman  with  a  vengeance.  She  manages  every  one  here  ;  and 
unless  you  are  in  her  good  books,  don't  expect  to  keep  your 
footing  in  this  house,  my  boy.  So  just  mind  and  pay  her  a 
little  more  attention  and  Miss  Lillian  a  little  less.  After  all, 
it  is  worth  the  trouble.  She  is  uncommonly  well  read  ;  and 
says  confounded  clever  things,  too,  when  she  wakes  up  out  of 
the  sulks ;  and  you  may  pick  up  a  wrinkle  or  two  from  her, 
worth  pocketing.  You  mind  what  she  says  to  you.  You 
know  she  is  going  to  be  married  to  Lord  Lynedale  ?" 

I  nodded  assent. 

"Well  then,  if  vou  want  to  hook  him,  you  must  secure  her 
first." 

"  I  want  to  hook  no  one,  Gfeorge  ;  I  have  told  you  that  a 
thousand  times." 

"  Oh,  no  I  certainly  not;  by  no  means  I  Why  should  youl" 
said  the  artful  dodger.  And  he  swung,  laughing,  out  of  the 
room,  leaving  in  my  mind  a  strange  suspicion,  of  which  I 
was  ashamed,  though  I  could  not  shake  it  off,  that  he  had 
remarked  Eleanor's  wish  to  cool  my  admiration  for  Lillian, 
and  was  willing,  for  some  purpose  of  his  own  to  further  that 
wish.  The  truth  is,  I  had  very  little  respect  for  him,  or  trust 
in  him ;  and  I  was  learning  to  look,  habitually,  for  some  selfish 
motive  in  all  he  said  or  did.  Perhaps,  if  1  had  acted  more 
boldly  upon  what  I  did  see,  \  should  not  have  been  here  now. 


CHAPTER.  XVII. 

SERMONS  AND  STONES. 

The  next  afternoon  was  the  last  but  one  of  my  stay  at 
J) .  W^  were  to  dine  late,  after  sunset,  and,  before  din- 
ner, we  went  into  the  cathedral.  The  choir  had  just  finished 
practicing-.  Certain  exceedingly  ill-looking  men,  whose  faces 
bespoke  principally  sensuality  and  self-conceit,  and  whose  func- 
tion was  that  of  praising  God,  on  the  sole  qualification  of  good 
bass  and  tenor  voices,  were  coming  chattering  through  the 
choir  gates;  and  behind  them,  a  group  of  small  boys  were 
suddenly  transforming  themselves  from  angels  into  sinners,  by 
tearing  off  their  white  surplices,  and  pinching  and  poking  each 
other  noisily  as  they  passed  us,  with  as  little  reverence  as 
Voltaire  himself  could  have  desired. 

I  had  often  been  in  the  cathedral  before — indeed,  we  at- 
tended the  service  daily,  and  I  had  been  appalled,  rather  than 
astonished  by  what  I  saw  and  heard  ;  the  unintelligible  ser- 
vice— the  irreverent  gabble  of  the  choristers  and  readers — the 
scanty  congregation — the  meagre  portion  of  the  vast  building 
which  seemed  to  be  turned  to  any  use  :  but  never  more  than 
that  evening,  did  I  feel  the  desolateness,  the  doleful  inutility, 
of  that  vast  desert  nave,  with  its  aisles  and  transepts — built 
for  some  purpose  or  other  now  extinct.  The  whole  place 
seemed  to  crush  and  sadden  me ;  and  I  could  not  re-echo  Lil- 
lian's remark  : 

"  How  those  pillars,  rising  story  above  story,  and  those 
lines  of  pointed  arches,  all  lead  the  eye  heavenward  I  It  is  a 
beautiful  notion,  that  about  pointed  architecture  being  sym- 
bolic of  Christianity." 

"  I  ought  to  be  very  much  ashamed  of  my  stupidity,"  I 
answered  ;  "but  I  can  not  feel  that,  though  I  believe  I  ought 
to  do  so.  That  vast  groined  roof,  with  its  enormous  weight 
of  hanging  stone,  seems  to  crush  one — to  bar  out  the  free  sky 
above.  Those  painted  windows,  too — how  gloriously  the 
western  sun  is  streaming  through  them  I  but  their  rich  hues 
only  dim  and  deface  his  light.  I  can  feel  what  you  say, 
when  I  look  at  the  cathedral  on  the  outside ;  there,  indeed, 
every  line  svveeps  the  eye  upward — carries  it  from  one  pinnacle 
to  another,  each  with  less  and  less  standing-ground,  till  at 
♦ho  summit  the  building  gradually  vanishes  in  a  point,  and 


164  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

leaves  the  spirit  to  wing  its  way  unsupported  and  alone  iniu 
the  ether.  Perhaps,"  I  added,  half  bitterly,  "these  cathedrals 
may  be  true  symbols  of  the  superstition  which  created  them — 
on  the  outside,  offering  to  enfranehise  the  soul  and  raise  it  up 
to  heaven  ;  but  when  the  dupes  had  entered,  giving  them  only 
a  dark  prison,  and  a  crushing  bondage,  which  neither  we  nor 
our  fathers  have  been  able  to  bear." 

"  You  may  sneer  at  them,  if  you  will,  Mr.  Locke,"  said 
Eleanor,  in  her  severe,  abrupt  way.  "The  Avorking  classes 
would  have  been  badly  ofi^  without  them.  They  were,  in 
their  day,  the  only  democratic  institution  in  the  world  ;  and 
the  only  socialist  one,  two.  The  only  chance  a  poor  man  had 
of  rising  by  his  worth,  was  by  coming  to  the  monastery.  And 
bitterly  the  working  classes  I'elt  the  M'ant  of  them,  when  they 
fell.      Your  own  Cobbett  can  tell  you  that  " 

"  Ah  I"  said  Lillian,  "  how  different  it  m.ist  have  been  four 
hundred  years  ago  I — how  solemn  and  picturesque  those  old 
monks  must  have  looked,  gliding  about  the  aisles  ! — and  how 
magnificent  the  choir  must  have  been,  before  all  the  glass 

and  carving,  and  that  beautiful  shrine  of  St.  ,  blazing, 

with  gold  and  jewels,  were  all  plundered  and  defaced  by  those 
horrid  Puritans  1" 

"  Say,  reformer-squires,"  answered  Eleanor ;  "  for  it  was 
they  who  did  the  thing;  only  it  was  found  convenient,  at  the 
Restoration,  to  lay  on  the  people  of  the  17th  century  the  in- 
iquities which  the  country  gentlemen  committed  in  the  16th." 

"Surely,"  I  added,  emboldened  by  her  words,  "if  the 
monasteries  were  what  their  admirers  say,  some  method  of 
restoring  the  good  of  the  old  system,  without  its  evil,  ought 
to  be  found  ;  and  would  be  found,  if  it  were  not — "  I  paused, 
recollecting  whose  guest  I  was. 

"If  it  were  not,  I  suppose,"  said  Eleanor,  "for  those  lazy, 
overfed,  bigoted  hypocrites,  the  clergy.  That,  I  presume,  is 
the  description  of  them  to  which  you  have  been  most  accus- 
tomed. Now,  let  me  ask  you  one  question.  Do  you  mean  to 
condemn,  just  now,  the  Church  as  it  was,  or  the  Church  as  it 
is,  or  the  Church  as  it  ought  to  be  1  Radicals  have  a  habit 
of  confusing  those  three  questions,  as  they  have  of  confusing 
.other  things  when  it  suits  them." 

"  Really,"  I  said — for  my  blood  was  rising — "  I  do  think 
[that,  with  the  confe.ssed  enormous  wealth  of  the  clergy,  the 
cathedral  establishments  especially,  they  might  do  more  for 
the  people." 

"Listen  to  me  a  little,  Mr.  Locke.     The  laity  nowadays 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  165 

take  a  pride  in  speaking  evil  of  the  clergy,  never  seeing  that 
if  they  are  bad,  the  laity  have  made  them  so.  Why,  what 
do  you  impute  to  them  ]  Their  worldliness,  their  being  like 
the  world,  like  the  laity  round  them — like  you,  in  short  ? 
Improve  yourselves,  and  by  so  doing,  if  there  is  this  sad 
tendency  in  the  clergy  to  imitate  you,  you  will  mend  them  ; 
if  you  do  not  find  that,  after  a)l,  it  is  they  who  will  have  to 
mend  you.  'As  with  the  people,  so  with  the  priest,'  is  the 
everlasting  law.  When,  fifty  years  ago,  all  classes  were 
drunkards,  from  the  statesman  to  the  peasant,  the  clergy 
were  drunken  also,  but  not  half  as  bad  as  the  laity.  Now 
the  laity  are  eaten  up  with  covetousness  and  ambition ;  and 
the  clergy  are  covetous  and  ambitious,  but  not  half  as  bad 
as  the  laity.  The  laity,  and  you  working-men  especially,  are 
the  dupes  of  frothy,  insincere,  official  rant,  as  Mr.  Carlyle 
would  call  it,  in  Parliament,  on  the  hustings,  at  every  debat- 
ing society  and  Chartist  meeting  ;  and  therefore  the  clergy- 
men's sermons  are  apt  to  be  just  what  people  like  elsewhere, 
and  what,  therefore,  they  suppose  people  will  like  there." 

"  If  then,"  I  answered,  "  in  spite  of  your  opinions,  you 
confess  the  clergy  to  be  so  bad,  why  are  you  so  angry  with 
men  of  our  opinions,  if  we  do  plot  sometimes  a  little  against 
the  Church  ?" 

"  I  do  not  think  you  know  what  my  opinions  are,  Mr. 
Locke.  Did  you  not  hear  me  just  now  praising  the  monas- 
teries, because  they  were  socialist  and  democratic  ?  But  why 
is  the  badness  of  the  clergy  any  reason  for  pulling  down  the 
Church  ]  That  is  another  of  the  confused  irrationalities  into 
which  you  all  allow  yourselves  to  fall.  What  do  you  mean 
by  crying  shame  on  a  man  for  being  a  bad  clergyman,  if  a 
good  clergyman  is  not  a  good  thing  1  If  the  very  idea  of  a 
clergyman  was  abominable,  as  your  Church-destroyers  ought 
to  say,  you  ought  to  praise  a  man  for  being  a  bad  one,  and 
not  acting  out  this  same  abominable  idea  of  priesthood.  Your 
very  outcry  against  the  sins  of  the  clergy  shows  that,  even  in 
your  minds,  a  dim  notion  lies  somewhere  that  a  clergyman's 
vocation  is,  in  itself,  a  divine,  a  holy,  a  beneficent  one." 

"  I  never  looked  at  it  in  that  light,  certainly,"  said  I,  some- 
what staggered. 

"  Very  likely  not.  One  word  more,  for  I  may  not  have 
another  "opportunity  of  speaking  to  you  as  I  would  on  these 
matters.  You  working-men  complain  of  the  clergy  lor  being 
bigoted  and  obscurantist,  and  hating  the  cause  of  the  people. 
Does  not  nine-tenths  of  the  blame  of  that  lie  at  your  door  ?     I 


fK6  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

took  up,  the  other  day,  at  hazard,  one  of  your  favorite  liberty- 
preaching  newspapers ;  and  T  saw  books  advertised  in  it,  whose 
names  no  modest  woman  should  ever  behold  ;  doctrines  and 
practices  advocated  in  it,  from  which  all  the  honesty,  the 
decency,  the  common  human  feeling  which  is  left  in  the 
English  mind,  ought  to  revolt,  and  does  revolt.  You  can  not 
deny  it.  Your  class  has  told  the  Avorld  that  the  cause  of 
liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  the  cause  which  the  working 
masses  claim  as  theirs,  identifies  itself  with  blasphemy  and  in- 
decency, with  the  tyrannous  persecutions  of  trades-unions,  with 
obhery,  assassination,  vitriol-bottles,  and  midnight  incendiar- 
ism. And  then  you  curse  the  clergy  for  taking  you  at  your 
word  ?  Whatsoever  they  do,  you  attack  them.  If  they 
believe  you,  and  stand  up  for  common  morality,  and  for  the 
truths  which  they  know  are  all-important  to  poor  as  well  as 
rich,  you  call  them  bigots  and  persecutors ;  while  if  they 
neglect,  in  any  way,  the  very  Christianity  for  believing  which 
you  insult  them,  you  turn  round  and  call  them  hypocrites. 
Mark  my  words,  Mr.  Locke,  till  you  gain  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  the  clergy,  you  will  never  rise.  The  day  will 
come  when  you  will  find  that  the  clergy  are  the  only  class 
I  who  can  help  you.  Ah,  you  may  shake  your  head.  I  warn 
I  you  of  it.  They  were  the  only  bulwark  of  the  poor  against 
I  the  mediaeval  tyranny  of  Rank  ;  you  will  find  them  the  only 
j   bulwark  against  the  modern  tyranny  of  Mammon." 

I   was  on  the  point  of  entreating  her  to  explain  herself 
further,  but  at  that  critical  moment  Lillian  interposed. 

"  Now,  stay  your  prophetic  glances  into  the  future ;  here 
come  Lynedale  and  papa."  And  in  a  moment,  Eleanor's  whole 
manner  and  countenance  altered — the  petulant,  wild  unrest, 
the  harsh  dictatorial  tone  vanished  ;  and  she  turned  to  meet 
her  lover  with  a  look  of  tender,  satisfied  devotion,  which  trans- 
figured her  whole  face.  It  was  most  strange,  the  power  he 
had  over  her.  His  presence,  even  at  a  distance,  seemed  to 
fill  her  whole  being  with  rich,  quiet  life.  She  watched  him 
with  folded  hands,  like  a  mystic  worshiper,  waiting  for  the 
afflatus  of  the  spirit ;  and,  suspicious  and  angry  as  I  felt 
toward  her,  I  could  not  help  being  drawn  to  her  by  this  reve- 
lation of  depths  of  strong  healthy  feeling,  of  which  her  usual 
(manner  gave  so  little  sign. 
This  conversation  thoroughly  puzzled  me ;  it  showed  me 
that  there  might  be  two  sides  to  the  question  of  the  people's 
cause,  as  well  as  to  that  of  others.  It  shook  a  little  my  faith 
in  the  infallibility  of  my  ov/n  class,  to  Irjear  such  severe  ani 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  167 

madversions  on  thein,  from  a  person  who  professed  herself  a« 
much  a  disciple  of  Carlyle  as  any  working-rnau,  and  who 
evidently  had  no  lack,  either  of  intellect  to  coinjirehend,  oi 
boldness  to  speak  out  his  doctrines  ;  who  could  praise  the  old 
monasteries  ibr  being  democratic  and  socialist,  and  spoke  lar 
more  severely  of  the  clergy  than  I  could  have  done — because 
she  did  not  deal  merely  in  trite  words  of  abuse,  but  showed  a 
real  analytic  insight  into  the  causes  of  their  short-coming. 

That  same  evening,  the  conversation  happened  to  turn  on 
dress,  of  which  Miss  Staunton  spoke  scornfully  and  disparag- 
ingly, as  mere  useless  vanity  and  frippery — an  em])ty  substi- 
tute for  real  beauty  of  person  as  well  as  the  higher  beauty  of 
mind.  And  I,  emboldened  by  the  courtesy  with  vv'hich  I  was 
always  called  on  to  take  my  share  in  every  thing  that  was 
said  or  done,  ventured  to  object,  humbly  enough,  to  her 
notions. 

"  But  is  not  beauty,"  1  said,  "  in  itself  a  good  and  blessed 
thing,  softening,  refining,  rejoicing  the  eyes  of  all  who  behold  ?" 
(and  my  eyes,  as  I  spoke,  involuntarily  rested  on  Lillian's 
face — who  saw  it,  and  blushed.)  "  Surely  nothing  which  helps 
beauty  is  to  be  despised.  And,  without  the  charms  of  dress, 
beauty,  even  that  of  expression,  does  not  really  do  itself  justice. 
How  many  lovely  and  lovable  faces  there  are,  for  instance, 
among  the  working  classes,  which,  if  they  had  but  the  advant- 
ages which  ladies  possess,  might  create  delight,  respect,  chiv- 
alrous worship,  in  the  beholder — but  are  now  never  appre- 
ciated, because  they  have  not  the  same  fair  means  of  display- 
ing themselves  which  even  the  savage  girl  of  the  South  Sea 
Islands  possesses  I" 

Lillian  said  it  was  so  very  true — she  had  really  never 
thought  of  it  before,  and,  somehow,  I  gained  courage  to  go  on. 

"  Besides,  dress  is  a  sort  of  sacrament,  if  I  may  use  the 
word — a  sure  sign  of  the  wearer's  character  ;  according  as  any 
one  is  orderly,  or  modest,  or  tasteful,  or  joyous,  or  brilliant" 
— and  I  glanced  again  at  Lillian — "those  excellences,  or  the 
want  of  them,  are  sure  to  show  themselves,  in  the  colors  they 
choose,  and  the  cut  of  their  garments.  In  the  workroom,  I 
and  a  friend  of  mine  used  often  to  amuse  ourselves  over  the 
clothes  we  were  making,  by  speculating  from  them  on  the 
sort  of  people  the  wearers  were  to  be  ;  and  I  fancy  we  were 
not  often  wrong." 

My  cousin  looked  daggers  at  me,  and  for  a  moment  I 
fancied  I  had  committed  a  dreadful  mistake  in  mentioninj^  my 


168  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

tailor-life.  So  I  had  in  his  eyes,  but  not  in  those  of  the  really 
well-bred  persons  round  me. 

"  Oh,  how  ver}'  amusing  it  must  have  been  !  I  think  I 
shall  turn  milliner,  Eleanor,  for  the  fun  of  divining  every 
one's  little  failings  from  their  caps  and  gowns  1" 

"Go  on,  Mr.  Locke,"  said  the  dean,  M'ho  had  seemed 
buried  in  the  "  Transactions  of  the  Pvoyal  Society."  "  The 
fact  is  novel,  and  I  am  more  obliged  to  any  one  who  gives 
me  that,  than  if  he  gave  me  a  bank-note.  The  money  gets 
spent  and  done  with  ;  but  I  can  not  spend  the  fact ;  it  re- 
mains for  life  as  permanent  capital,  returuing  interest  and 
compound-interest  ad  hijinitiwi.  By-the-by,  tell  me  about 
those  same  workshops.  I  have  heard  more  about  them  than 
I  like  to  believe  tnie." 

And  I  did  tell  him  all  about  them  ;  and  spoke,  my  blood 
rising  as  I  went  on,  long  and  earnestly,  perhaps  eloquently. 
Now  and  then  I  got  abashed,  and  tried  to  stop  ;  and  then  the 
dean  informed  me  that  I  was  speaking  well  and  sensibly  ; 
M'hile  Lillian  entreated  me  to  go  on.  She  had  never  con- 
ceived such  things  possible — it  was  as  interesting  as  a  novel, 
&c.,  &c. ;  and  Miss  Staunton  sat  with  compresfied  lips  and 
frowning  brow,  apparently  thinking  of  nothing  but  her  book, 
till  I  felt  quite  angry  at  her  apathy — for  such  it  seemed  tc 
rae  to  be. 


CHAPTER  XVllI. 

MY  FALL. 

And  now  the  last  day  of  our  stay  at  D had  arrived 

and  I  had  as  yet  heard  nothing  of  the  prospects  of  my  book  ; 
though  indeed,  the  company  in  which  I  had  found  myself  had 
driven  literary  ambition,  for  the  time  being,  out  of  my  head, 
and  bewitched  me  to  float  down  the  stream  of  daily  circum- 
stance, satisfied  to  snatch  the  enjoyment  of  each  present  mo- 
ment. That  morning,  however,  after  I  had  fulfilled  my  daily 
task  of  arranging  and  naming  objects  of  natural  history,  the 
dean  settled  himself  back  in  his  arm-chair,  and  bidding  me 
sit  down,  evidently  meditated  a  business-conversation. 

He  had  heard  from  his  publisher,  and  read  his  letter  to  me. 
"  The  poems  were  on  the  whole  much  liked.  The  most  sat- 
isfactory method  of  publishing  for  all  parlies,  would  be  by 
procuring  so  many  subscribers,  each  agreeing  to  take  so  many 
copies.  In  consideration  of  the  dean's  known  literary  judg- 
ment and  great  influence,  the  publisher  would,  as  a  private 
favor,  not  object  to  take  the  risk  of  any  further  expenses." 

So  far  every  thing  sounded  charming.  The  method  was 
not  a  very  independent  one,  but  it  was  the  only  one ;  and  1 
should  actually  have  the  delight  of  having  pubhshed  a  volume. 
But.  alas  I  "he  thought  that  the  sale  of  the  book  might  be 
greatly  facilitated,  if  certain  passages  of  a  strong  political  ten-  , 
dency  were  omitted.  He  did  not  wish  personally  to  object  to  I 
them  as  statements  of  facts,  or  to  the  pictorial  vigor  with 
which  they  Avere  expressed ;  but  he  thought  that  they  were 
somewhat  too  strong  for  the  present  state  of  the  public  taste  •, 
and  though  he  should  be  the  last  to  allow  any  private  consid- 
erations to  influence  his  weak  patronage  of  rising  talent,  yet, 
considering  his  present  connection,  he  should  hardly  wish  to 
take  on  himself  the  responsibility  of  publishing  such  passages, 
unless  with  great  modifications." 

"  You  see,"  said  the  good  old  man,  "  the  opinion  of  respect- 
able practical  men,  who  know  the  world,  exactly  coincides 
with  mine.  I  did  not  like  to  tell  you  that  I  could  not  helj) 
in  the  publication  of  your  MSS.  in  their  present  state  ;  but  I 
am  sure,  from  the  modesty  and  gentleness  which  I  have  re- 
marked in  you,  your  readiness  to  listen  to  reason,  and  your 
pleasing  freedom  from  all  violence  or  coarseness  in  expressing 

II 


170  ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

your  opinions,  that  you  will  not  object  to  so  exceedingly  rea- 
s-onable  a  request,  which,  after  all,  is  only  for  your  good.  Ah  I 
young  man,"  he  went  on,  in  a  more  feeling  tone  than  I  had 
yet  heard  fi-om  him,  "  if  you  were  once  embroiled  in  that  po- 
litical world,  of  which  you  know  so  little,  you  would  soon  be 
crying  like  David,  '  Oh,  that  I  had  wings  like  a  dove,  then 
would  I  flee  away  and  be  at  rest  I'  Do  you  fancy  that  you 
can  alter  a  fallen  world  1  What  it  is,  it  always  has  been, 
and  will  be  to  the  end.  Every  age  has  its  political  and  so- 
cial nostrums,  my  dear  young  man,  and  fancies  them  infalli- 
ble ;  and  the  next  generation  arises  to  curse  them  as  failures 
in  practice,  and  superstitious  in  theor}'-,  and  try  some  new  nos- 
trum of  its  own." 

I  sighed. 

"  Ah  I  you  may  sigh.  But  we  have  each  of  us  to  be  dis 
enchanted  of  our  dream.  There  was  a  time  once  when  1 
talked  republicanism  as  loudly  as  raw  youth  ever  did — when 
1  had  an  excuse  for  it,  too ;  for  when  I  was  a  boy  I  saw  the 
French  Revolution  ;  and  it  was  no  wonder  if  young,  enthusi- 
astic brains  were  excited  by  all  sorts  of  wild  hopes — 'perfect- 
ibility of  the  species,'  '  rights  of  man,'  '  universal  liberty, 
equality  and  brotherhood.'  My  dear  sir,  there  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun  ;  all  that  is  stale  and  trite  to  a  septuagenarian, 
who  has  seen  where  it  all  ends.  I  speak  to  you  freely,  because 
I  am  deeply  interested  in  you.  I  feel  that  this  is  the  import- 
ant question  of  your  life,  and  that  you  have  talents  the  pos- 
session of  which  is  a  heavy  responsibility.  Eschew  politics, 
once  and  for  all,  as  I  have  done.  I  might  have  been,  I  may 
tell  you,  a  bishop  at  this  moment,  if  I  had  condescended  to 
meddle  again  in  those  party  questions  of  which  my  youthful 
experience  sickened  me.  But  I  knew  that  I  should  only 
weaken  my  own  influence,  as  that  most  noble  and  excellent 
man,  Dr.  Arnold,  did,  by  interfering  in  politics.  The  poet, 
like  the  clergyman  and  the  philosopher,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  politics.  Let  them  choose  the  better  part,  and  it  shall 
not  be  taken  from  them.  The  world  may  rave,"  he  contin- 
ued, waxing  eloquent  as  he  approached  liis  favorite  subject — 
"  the  world  may  rave,  but  in  the  study  there  is  quiet.  The 
world  may  change.  Mr.  Locke,  and  will ;  but  '  the  earth 
abideth  forever.'  Solomon  had  seen  somewhat  of  polities,  and 
social  improvement,  and  so  on  ;  and  behold,  then,  as  now, 
'  all  was  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  That  which  is  crook- 
ed can  not  be  made  straight,  and  that  which  is  wanting  can 
uut  be  numbered.      What  profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labor 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  17  [ 

which  he  takclh  under  the  sun  ?  The  thing  which  ha,th 
been,  it  is  tliat  which  shall  be,  and  there  is  no  new  thing 
under  the  sun.  One  generation  passeth  away,  and  another 
Cometh  ;  but  the  earth  abideth  forever.'  No  wonder  that  the 
wisest  of  men  took  refuge  from  such  experience,  as  I  have 
tried  to  do,  in  talking  of  all  herbs,  from  the  cedar  of  Lebanon 
to  the  hyssop  that  groweth  on  the  wall  I 

"  Ah !  Mr.  Locke,"  he  went  on,  in  a  soft,  melancholy,  half- 
abstracted  tone — "  ah  I  Mr.  Locke,  I  have  felt  deeply,  and 
you  will  feel  some  day,  the  truth  of  Jarno's  saying  in  '  Wil- 
helm  Meister,'  when  he  was  wandering  alone  in  the  Alps, 
with  his  geological  hammer,  '  These  rocks,  at  least,  tell  me  no 
lies,  as  men  do.'  Ay ;  there  is  no  lie  in  Nature,  no  discord 
in  the  revelations  of  science,  in  the  laAvs  of  the  universe.  Li- 
fuiite,  pure,  unfallen,  earth-supporting  Titans,  fresh  as  on  the 
morning  of  creation,  those  great  laws  endure  ;  your  only  true 
democrats,  too — for  nothing  is  too  great  or  too  small  for  them 
to  take  note  of  No  tiniest  gnat,  or  speck  of  dust,  but  they 
feed  it,  guide  it,  and  preserve  it.  Hail  and  snow,  wind  and 
vapor,  fulfilling  their  Maker's  word  ;  and  like  him,  too,  hiding 
themselves  from  the  Avise  and  prudent,  and  revealing  them- 
selves unto  babes.  Yes,  Mr.  Locke;  it  is  the  cliildlike,  sim- 
ple, patient,  reverent  heart,  which  science  at  once  demands 
and  cultivates.  To  prejudice  or  haste,  to  self  conceit  or  am- 
bition, she  proudly  shuts  her  treasuries — to  open  them  to  men 
of  humble  heart,  whom  this  world  thinks  simido  dreamers — 
her  Newtons,  and  Owens,  and  Faradays.  Why  should  you 
not  become  such  a  man  as  they  ]  You  have  the  talents 
— 3^ou  have  the  love  for  Nature — you  seem  to  have  the 
gentle  and  patient  spirit,  which,  indeed,  will  grow  up  more 
and  more  in  you,  if  you  become  a  real  student  of  science.  Or, 
if  you  must  be  a  poet,  why  not  sing  of  Nature,  and  leave  those 
to  sing  political  squabbles,  who  have  no  eye  for  the  beauty  oi 
her  repose  ?     How  few  great  poets  have  been  politicians  I" 

I  gently  suggested  Milton. 

"  Ay  I  he  became  a  great  poet  only  when  he  had  deserted 
politics,  because  they  had  deserted  him.  In  blindness  and 
poverty,  in  the  utter  failure  of  all  his  national  theories,  he 
wrote  the  works  which  have  made  him  immortal.  Was 
Shakspeare  a  politician?  or  any  one  of  the  great  poets  who 
have  arisen  during  the  last  thirty  years  ?  Have  they  not  all 
seemed  to  consider  it  a  saci'ed  duty  to  keep  themselves,  as  far 
as  they  could,  out  of  party-strife  ?" 

I  quoted  Southey,  Shelley,  and  Burns,  as  instances  to  tlia 


172  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POIIT. 

contrary ;  but  his  induction  was  completed  already,  to  his  own 
Batisfaction. 

"  Poor  dear  Southey  was  a  great  verse-maker,  rather  than 
a  great  poet ;  and  I  always  consider  that  his  party-prejudicea 
and  party-writing  narrowed  and  harshened  a  mind  which 
ought  to  have  been  flowing  forth  freely  and  lovingly  toward 
all  forms  of  life.  And  as  for  Shelley  and  Burns,  their  politics 
dictated  to  them  at  once  the  worst  portions  of  their  poetry 
and  of  their  practice.  Shelley,  what  little  I  have  read  of  him, 
only  seems  himself  when  he  forgets  radicalism  for  nature  ;  and 
you  would  not  set  Burns's  life  or  death,  either,  as  a  model  for 
imitation  in  any  class.  Now,  do  you  know,  I  must  ask  you 
to  leave  me  a  little.  I  am  somewhat  fatigued  with  this  long 
discussion"  (in  which,  certainly,  I  had  borne  no  great  share) ; 
"  and  I  am  sure  that,  after  all  I  have  said,  you  will  see  the 
propriety  of  acceding  to  the  publisher's  advice.  Go  and  think 
over  it,  and  let  me  have  your  answer  by  post-time." 

I  did  go  and  think  over  it — too  long  for  my  good.  If  ] 
had  acted  on  the  first  impulse,  I  should  have  refused,  and 
been  safe.  These  passages  were  the  very  pith  and  marrow 
of  the  poems  ;  they  were  the  very  words  which  I  had  felt 
it  my  duty,  my  glory,  to  utter.  I,  wlio  had  been  a  work- 
ing-man, who  had  experienced  all  their  sorrows  and  tempta- 
tions— I,  seemed  called  by  every  circumstance  of  my  lile  to 
preach  their  cause,  to  expose  their  wrongs — I  to  quash  my 
convictions,  to  stultify  my  book,  for  the  sake  of  popularity, 
money,  patronage  I  And  yet — all  that  involved  seeing  more 
of  Lillian.  They  were  only  too  powerful  inducements  in 
themselves,  alas  I  but  I  believe  I  could  have  resisted  them 
tolerably,  if  they  had  not  been  backed  by  love.  And  so  a 
struggle  arose,  which  the  rich  reader  may  think  a  very  fantas- 
tic one,  though  the  poor  man  will  understand  it,  and  surely 
pardon  it  also — seeing  that  he  himself  is  Man.  Could  I  not, 
just  once  in  a  way,  serve  God  and  Mammon  at  once  ? — or 
rather,  not  Mammon,  but  Venus  :  a  worship  which  looked  to 
me,  and  really  was  in  my  case,  purer  than  all  the  Mariolatry 
in  Popedom.  After  all,  the  fall  might  not  be  so  great  as  it 
seemed — perhaps  I  was  not  infallible  on  these  same  points. 
(It  is  wonderful  how  humble  and  self-denying  one  becomes 
when  one  is  afraid  of  doing  one's  duty.)  Perhaps  the  dean 
r.aight  be  right.  He  had  been  republican  himself  once,  cer- 
tainly. The  facts,  indeed,  which  I  had  stated,  there  could  bo 
no  doubt  of;  but  I  might  have  viewed  them  through  a  pre 
iudiced  and  angry  medium — I  might    have  been  not  quite 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  TOiri .  17.J 

I<)j.ncal  in  my  deductions  from  them — I  might — .  In  short 
bftween  "  perhapses"  and  "mights,"  I  fell — a  very  deep,  real, 
damnable  iall ;  and  consented  to  emasculate  my  poems,  and 
become  a  flunky  and  a  dastard. 

I  mentioned  my  consent  that  evening  to  the  party  ;  the 
(lean  jjurred  content  thereat.  Eleanor,  to  my  astonishment, 
just  said,  sternly  and  abruptly, 

"  Weak !"  and  then  turned  away,  while  Lillian  began  : 

"  Oh  I  what  a  pity  I  And  really  they  w^ere  some  of  the 
prettiest  verses  of  all  I  But  of  course  my  father  must  know 
best ;  you  are  quite  right  to  be  guided  by  him,  and  do  what 
ever  is  proper  and  prudent.  After  all,  papa,  I  have  got  the 
naughtiest  of  them  all,  you  know,  safe.  Eleanor  set  it  to 
music,  and  wrote  it  out  in  her  book  ;  and  I  thought  it  so 
charming  that  I  copied  it." 

VVHiat  Lillian  said  about  herself,  I  drank  in  as  greedily  as 
usual ;  what  she  said  about  Eleanor,  fell  on  a  heedless  ear,  and 
vanished,  not  to  re-appear  in  my  recollection  till — .  But  T 
must  not  anticipate. 

So  it  was  all  settled  pleasantly ;  and  I  sat  up  that  even- 
ing, writing  a  bit  of  verse  for  Lillian,  about  the  Old  Cathe- 
dral, and  "Heaven-aspiring  towers,"  and  "Aisles  of  cloistered 
shade,"  and  all  that  sort  of  thing ;  which  I  did  not  believe, 
or  care  for ;  but  I  thought  it  would  please  her,  and  so  it  did ; 
and  I  got  golden  smiles  and  compliments  for  my  first,  though 
not  my  last,  insincere  poem.  I  was  going  fast  dowi  hill  iv 
my  hurry  to  rise.  However,  as  I  said,  it  Avas  all  pleasan' 
enough.  I  was  to  return  to  town,  and  there  Avait  the  dean' 
orders  ;  and,  most  luckily,  I  had  received  that  morning  froru. 
Sandy  Mackaye  a  characteristic  letter  : 

"Gowk,  Telemachus,  hearken  I  Item  1.  Ye'r  fou  wi'  the 
Cireean  cup,  ancath  the  shade  o'  shovel  hats  and  steeple- 
houses. 

"Item  2.  I,  cuif-Mentor  that  I  am,  wearing  out  a  gude 
pair  o'  gude  Scots  brogues,  that  my  sister's  husband's  third 
cousin  sent  me  a  towmond  gane  fra  Aberdeen,  rinning  ower 
the  town  to  a'  journals,  respectable  and  ither,  anent  the  sel- 
lin'  o'  your  'Autobiography  of  an  Engine-Boiler  in  the  Van. \;- 
hall-road,'  the  whilk  I  ha'  disposit  o'  at  the  last,  to  O'Flynn's 
Weekly  Warwhoop ;  and  gin  ye  ha'  only  mair  sic  trash  in 
your  head,  ye  may  get  your  mea,"  whiles  out  o'  the  same  kist ; 
unless,  as  I  sair  misdoubt,  ye're  praying  already,  like  Eli's 
bairns,  '  to  be  put  into  ane  o'  the  priest's  offices,  that  ye  may 
eat  a  piece  o'  bread.' 


ir-J  \LTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Ye'll  be  coming  the  morrow  ?  I'm  lane  without  ye  ; 
though  I  look  for  ye  surely  to  come  ben  wi'  a  gowd  shoulder- 
knot,  and  a  red  nose." 

This  letter,  though  it  hit  me  hard,  and  made  me,  I  confess, 
a  little  angry  at  the  moment  with  my  truest  friend,  still  offer- 
ed me  a  means  of  subsistence,  and  enabled  me  to  decline  safe- 
ly the  pecuniary  aid  which  I  dreaded  the  dean's  offering  me. 
And  yet  I  ."elt  dispirited  and  ill  at  ease.  My  conscience  would 
not  let  me  enjoy  the  success  I  felt  I  had  attained.  But  next 
morning  I  saw  Lillian.;  and  I  forgot  books,  people's  cause, 
conscience,  and  every  thing. 

I  went  home  by  coach — a  luxury  on  which  ray  cousin  in- 
sisted— as  he  did  on  lending  me  the  fare  ;  so  that  in  all  I 
owed  him  somewhat  moi'e  than  eleven  pounds.  But  I  was 
loo  happy  to  care  for  a  fresh  debt,  and  home  I  went,  consid- 
ering my  fortune  made. 

My  heart  fell,  as  I  stepped  into  the  dingy  little  old  shop. 
Was  it  the  meanness  of  the  place,  after  the  comfort  and  ele- 
gance of  my  late  abode  ?  AVas  it  disappointment  at  not  find- 
ing P^Iackaye  at  home  1  Or  was  it  that  black-edged  letter 
Avhich  lay  waiting  for  me  on  the  table  ?  I  was  afraid  to  open 
it :  I  knew  not  why.  I  tui'ned  it  over  and  over  several  times, 
trying  to  guess  v/hose  the  handwriting  on  the  cover  might  be  ; 
the  post-mark  was  two  days  old  ;  and  at  last  I  broke  the  seal 

"  Sir — This  is  to  inform  you,  that  your  mother,  Mrs.  Locke, 
died  this  morning,  a  sensible  sinner,  not  without  assurance  of 
her  election  ;  and  that  her  funeral  is  fixed  ibr  Wednesday, 
the  29th  instant. 

"  The  humble  servant  of  the  Lord's  people, 

"  J.  WlGGINTON." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

SHORT  AND  SAD. 

I  !^iiALL  pass  over  the  agonies  of  the  next  few  days.  There 
is  seli-exentcration  enough  and  to  spare  in  my  story,  without 
dilating  on  them.  They  are  too  sacred  to  publish,  and  too 
painl'ul,  alas  I  even  to  recall.  I  write  my  story,  too,  as  a 
working-man.  Of  those  emotions  which  are  common  to  hu- 
manity, I  shall  say  but  little — except  when  it  is  necessary  to 
piovc  that  the  working-man  has  feelings  like  the  rest  of  hisi 
kind.  But  those  feelings  may,  in  this  case,  be  supplied  by  the/ 
reader's  own  imagination.  Let  him  represent  them  to  himself 
as  bitter,  as  remorseful  as  he  will,  he  will  not  equal  the  real- 
ity. True,  she  had  cast  me  off;  but  had  I  not  rejoiced  in  that  i 
rejection  which  should  have  been  my  shame  ?  True,  I  had  ( 
fed  on  the  hope  of  some  day  winning  reconciHation,  by  win- 
ning fame  ;  but  before  the  fame  had  arrived,  the  reconciliation 
had  become  impossible.  I  had  shrunk  from  going  back  to  her, 
as  I  ought  to  have  done,  in  filial  humility,  and,  therefore,  I  was 
not  allowed  to  go  back  to  her  in  the  pride  of  success.  Heaven 
knows,  I  had  not  forgotten  her.  Night  and  day  I  had  thought 
of  her  with  prayers  and  blessings;  but  I  had  made  a  merit 
of  my  own  love  to  her — my  forgiveness  of  her,  as  I  dared  to 
call  it.  I  had  pampered  my  conceit  \vith  the  notion  that  I 
was  a  martyr  in  the  cause  of  genius  and  enlightenment.  How 
hollow,  Avindy,  heartless,  all  that  looked  now.  There  I  I  will 
say  no  more.  Heaven  preserve  any  who  read  these  pages, 
from  such  days  and  nights  as  I  dragged  on  till  that  funeral, 
and  for  weeks  after  it  was  over,  when  I  had  sat  once  more  in 
the  little  old  chapel,  with  all  the  memories  of  my  childhood 
crowding  up,  and  tantalizing  me  with  the  vision  of  their  sim 
pie  peace — never,  never  to  return  I  I  heard  my  mother's 
dying  pangs,  her  prayers,  her  doubts  her  agonies,  for  my  rep- 
robate soul,  dissected  for  the  public  good  by  my  old  enemy, 
Mr.  Wigginton,  who  dragged  in,  among  his  fulsome  eulogies 
of  my  mother's  "  signs  of  grace,"  rejoicings  that  there  were 
*•  babes  span-long  in  hell."  I  saw  my  sister  Susan,  now  a 
tall  handsome  woman,  but  become  all  rigid,  sour,  with  coarse 
grim  lips,  and  that  crushed,  self-conscious,  reserved,  almost 
dishonest  look  about  the  eyes,  common  to  fanatics  of  every 
3reed.  I  heard  her  cold  farewell,  as  she  put  into  my  hands 
certain  notes  and  diaries  of  my  mother's  which  she  had  be- 


176  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

queathed  to  me  on  her  death-bed.  I  heard  myself  proclaimed 
inheritor  of  some  small  matters  of  furniture,  which  had  belong- 
ed to  her  ;  told  Susan,  carelessly  to  keep  them  for  herself;  and 
went  forth  fancying  that  the  curse  of  Cain  was  on  my  brow. 

I  took  home  the  diary  ;  but  several  days  elapsed  before  I  had 
courage  to  open  it.  Let  the  words  I  read  there  be  as  secret 
as  the  misery  which  dictated  them.  I  had  broken  my  mother's 
heart  I — no  !  I  had  not ! — The  infernal  superstition  which 
taught  her  to  fancy  that  Heaven's  love  was  narrower  than  her 
own — that  God  could  hate  his  creature,  not  for  its  sins,  but  for 
its  very  nature  which  he  had  given  it — that,  that  had  killed  her  1 

And  I  remarked,  too,  with  a  gleam  of  hope,  that  in  several 
places  where  sunshine  seemed  ready  to  break  through  the 
black  cloud  of  fanatic  gloom  ;  where  she  seemed  inchned  not 
merely  to  melt  toward  me  (for  there  was,  in  every  page,  an 
under-current  of  love,  deeper  than  death,  and  stronger  than 
the  grave),  but  also  to  dare  to  trust  God  on  my  behalf — be- 
hold lines  carefully  erased,  page  after  page  torn  out,  evidently 
long  after  the  MSS.  were  written.  I  believe,  to  this  day, 
that  either  my  poor  sister  or  her  father-confessor  was  the  per- 
petrator of  that  act.  The  fmus  2^(1  is  not  yet  extinct;  and 
it  is  as  inconvenient  now  as  it  was  in  popish  times,  to  tell  the 
whole  truth  about  saints,  when  they  dare  to  say  or  do  things 
which  will  not  quite  fit  into  the  formulae  of  their  sect. 

But  what  was  to  become  of  Susan]  Though  my  uncle 
continued  to  her  the  allowance  which  he  had  made  to  my 
mother,  yet  I  was  her  natural  protector — and  she  was  my 
only  tie  on  earth.  Was  I  to  lose  her,  too  1  Might  we  not, 
after  all,  be  happy  together,  in  some  little  hole  in  Chelsea, 
like  Elia  and  his  ]3ridget  ?  That  question  was  solved  for  me. 
She  declined  my  offers ;  saying,  that  she  could  not  live  with 
any  one  whose  religious  opinions  diflered  from  her  own,  and 
that  she  had  already  engaged  a  room  at  the  house  of  a  Chris- 
tian friend  ;  and  was  shortly  to  be  united  to  that  dear  man 
of  God,  Mr.  Wigginton,  who  was  to  be  removed  to  the  work 
of  the  Lord  in  Manchester. 

I  knew  the  scoundrel,  but  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  me  to  undeceive  her.  Perhaps  he  was  only  a  scoundrel — 
perhaps  he  would  not  ill-treat  her.  And  yet — my  own  httle 
\  Susan  I  my  playfellow  I  my  only  tie  on  earth — to  lose  her — - 
and  not  only  her,  but  her  respect,  her  love  I  And  my  spirit, 
deep  enough  already,  sank  deeper  still  into  sadness ;  and  I 
'  il'lt  myself  alone  on  earth,  and  clung  to  Mackaye  as  to 
father — and  a  father  indeed  that  old  man  was  to  me  I 


a 


\ 


CHAPTER  XX. 

PEGASUS  IN  HARNESS. 

Bar,  m  sorrow  or  in  joy,  I  had  to  earn  my  bread  ;  and  so, 
too,  had  Crossthwaite,  poor  iellow  !  How  he  contrived  to 
feed  hirn.self  and  his  little  Katie  for  the  next  few  years,  is 
more  than  I  can  tell  ;  at  all  events,  he  worked  hard  enough 
He  scribbled,  agitated  ;  ran  from  London  to  Manchester,  and 
Manchester  to  Bradford,  spouting,  lecturing — sowing  the  east 
wind,  I  am  afraid,  and  little  more.  Whose  fault  was  it  ] 
What  could  such  a  man  do,  with  that  fervid  tongue,  and 
heart,  and  brain  of  his,  in  such  a  station  as  his,  such  a  time 
as  this  ?  Society  had  helped  to  make  him  an  agitator.  So- 
ciety has  had,  more  or  less,  to  take  consequences  of  her  own 
handiwork.  For  Crossthwaite  did  not  speak  without  hearers. 
He  could  make  the  fierce,  shrewd  artisan  nature  flash  out 
into  fire — not  always  celestial,  nor  always,  either,  infernal. 
So  he  agitated,  and  lived — how,  I  know  not.  That  he  did  do 
so,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  and  Katie  are  at  this  mo- 
ment playing  chess  in  the  cabin,  before  my  eyes,  and  making 
love,  all  the  while,  as  if  they  had  not  been  married  a  week — 
Ah,  well ! 

I,  however,  had  to  do  more  than  get  my  bread  ;  I  had  to 
pay  off  those  fearful  eleven  pounds  odd,  which,  now  that  all 
the  excitement  of  my  stay  at  D had  been  so  sadly  quench- 
ed, lay  like  lead  upon  my  memory.  My  list  of  subscribers 
filled  slowly,  and  I  had  no  power  of  increasing  it,  by  any  can- 
vassings  of  my  own.  My  uncle,  indeed,  had  pi'omised  to  take 
two  copies,  and  my  cousin  one  ;  not  wishing,  of  course,  to  be 
so  uncommercial  as  to  run  any  risk,  before  they  had  seen 
whether  my  poems  would  succeed.  But,  with  those  excep- 
tions, the  dean  had  it  all  his  own  way ;  and  he  could  not  be 
expected  to  forego  his  own  literary  labors  for  my  sake ;  so, 
through  all  that  glaring  summer,  and  sad  foggy  autumn,  and 
nipping  winter,  I  had  to  get  my  bread  as  I  best  could — by  my 
pen.  Mackaye  grumbled  at  my  writing  so  much,  and  so  fast, 
and  sneered  about  ihe  furor  scribcndi.  But  it  was  hardly 
fair  upon  me.  "  My  mouth  craved  it  of  me,"  as  Solomon 
says.  I  had  really  no  other  means  of  livelihood.  Even  if  I 
could  have  got  employment  as  a  tailor,  in  the  honorable  trade, 
T  loathed  the  business  utterly — perhaps,  alas  I  to  confess  the 


178  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

truth,  I  was  beginning  to  despise  it.  I  could  bear  to  tliinls 
nf  myself  as  a  poor  genius,  in  connection  with  my  new  wealthy 
and  high-bred  patrons  ;  for  there  was  precedent  for  the  thing. 
Penniless  bards  and  squires  of  low  degree,  low-born  artists, 
ennobled  by  their  pictures — there  was  something  grand  in  the 
notion  of  mind  triumphant  over  the  inequalities  of  rank,  and 
associating  with  the  great  and  wealthy,  as  their  spiritual  equal, 
on  the  mere  footing  of  its  own  innate  nobility  ;  no  matter  to 
what  den  it  might  return,  to  convert  it  into  a  temple  of  the 
Muses,  by  the  glorious  creations  of  its  fancy,  &c.,  &c.  But 
to  go  back  daily  from  the  drawing-room  and  the  publisher's 
to  the  goose  and  the  shop-board,  was  too  much  for  my  weak- 
ness, even  if  it  had  been  physically  possible,  as,  thank  Heaven, 
it  was  not. 

So  I  became  a  hack  writer,  and  sorrowfully,  but  deliber- 
ately, "  put  my  Pegasus  into  heavy  harness,"  as  my  betters 
had  done  before  me.  It  was  miserable  work,  there  is  no 
,'.lenying  it — only  not  worse  than  tailoring.  To  try  and  serve 
gGod  and  Mammon  too ;  to  make  miserable  compromises 
laily,  between  the  two  great  incompatibilities — what  was  true, 
md  what  would  pay  ;  to  speak  my  mind,  in  fear  and  trem- 
jling,  by  hints,  and  halves,  and  quarters  ;  to  be  daily  hauling 
poor  Truth  just  up  to  tlie  top  of  her  well,  and  then,  frightened 
at  my  own  success,  let  her  plump  down  again  to  the  bottom ; 
to  sit  there,  trying  to  teach  others,  while  my  mind  was  in  a 
whirl  of  doubt  ;  to  feed  others'  intellects,  while  my  own  were 
hungering  ;  to  grind  on  in  the  Philistines'  mill,  or  occasion- 
ally make  sport  for  them,  like  some  weary-hearted  clown 
grinning  in  a  pantomime,  in  a  "light  article,"  as  blind  as 
Samson,  but  not,  alas  !  as  strong,  for  indeed  my  Delilah  of 
the  West-end  had  clipped  ray  locks,  and  there  seemed  little 
chance  of  their  growing  again.  That  face  and  that  drawing- 
room  flitted  before  me  from  morning  till  eve,  and  enervated 
and  distracted  my  already  over-wearied  brain. 

I  had  no  time,  besides,  to  concentrate  my  thoughts  suffi- 
ciently for  poetry  ;  no  time  to  wait  for  inspiration.  From  the 
moment  1  had  swallowed  my  breakfast,  I  had  to  sit  scribbling 
off  my  thoughts  anyhow  in  prose  ;  and  soon  my  own  scanty 
stock  was  exhausted,  and  I  Avas  forced  to  beg,  borrow,  and 
steal  notions  and  facts,  wherever  I  could  get  them.  Oh  I  the 
misery  of  having  to  read,  not  what  I  longed  to  know,  but 
what  I  thought  would  pay  I — -to  skip  page  after  page  of  in- 
teresting matter,  just  to  pick  out  a  single  thought  or  sentence 
vvliifh  could  bo  stitched  into  my  patcliwork  ! — and  then  the 


ALTOX  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT.        I7f) 

Btill  j^reater  misery  of  seeing  the  article  which  I  had  sent  to 
press  a  tolerably  healthy  and  lusty  bantling,  appear  in  print 
next  week,  after  suffering  the  inquisition-tortures  of  the  edi- 
torial censorship,  all  maimed,  and  squinting,  and  one-sided, 
with  the  color  rubbed  off  its  poor  cheeks,  and  generally  a  vil- 
lainous hang-dog  look  of  ferocity,  so  different  from  its  birth- 
smile  that  1  often  did  not  know  my  own  child  again  ! — and 
then,  when  I  dared  to  remonstrate,  however  feebly,  to  be  told, 
by  way  of  comfort,  that  the  public  taste  must  be  consulted  I 
It  gave  me  a  hopeful  notion  of  the  said  taste,  certainly  ;  and 
often  and  often  I  groaned  in  spirit  over  the  temper  of  my  own 
class,  which  not  only  submitted  to,  but  demanded,  such  one- 
sided bigotry,  prurience,  and  ferocity,  from  those  who  set  up 
as  its  guides  and  teachers. 

Mr.  O'Flynn,  editor  of  the  Weekly  Warhoop,  whose  white 
sdave  I  now  found  myself,  was,  I  am  afraid,  a  pretty  faithful 
specimen  of  that  class,  as  it  existed  before  the  bitter  lesson  of 
the  lOth  of  April  brought  the  Chartist  w'orking  men  and  the 
Chartist  press  to  their  senses.  Thereon  sprang  up  a  new 
race  of  papers,  whose  moral  tone,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  their  political  or  doctrinal  opinions,  was  certainly  not  in- 
ferior to  that  of  the  Whig  and  Tory  press.  The  Common- 
trealth,  the  Standard  of  Freedom,  the  Plain  Speaker,  were 
reprobates,  if  to  be  a  Chartist  is  to  be  a  reprobate  :  but  none 
except  the  most  one-sided  bigots  could  deny  them  the  praise 
of  a  stern  morality  and  a  lofty  earnestness,  a  hatred  of  evil 
and  craving  after  good,  which  would  often  put  to  shame  many 
a  paper  among  the  oracles  of  Belgravia  and  Exeter  Hall. 
But  those  were  the  days  of  lubricity  and  O'Flynn.  Not  that 
the  man  was  an  unredeemed  scoundrel.  He  was  no  more 
profligate,  either  in  his  literary  or  his  private  morals,  than 
many  a  man  who  earns  his  hundreds,  sometimes  his  thousands, 
a  year,  by  prophesying  smooth  things  to  Mammon,  crying  in 
daily  leaders,  "  Peace  I  peace  I"  when  there  is  no  peace,  and 
daubing  the  rotten  walls  of  careless  luxury  and  self-satisfied 
covetousness  with  the  untempered  mortar  of  party  statistics 
and  garbled  foreign  news — till  "  the  storm  shall  fall,  and  the 
breaking  thereof  cometh  suddenly  in  an  instant.''  Let  those 
rf  the  respectable  press  who  are  without  sin,  cast  the  first 
stone  at  the  unrespectable.  Many  of  the  latter  class,  who 
have  been  branded  as  traitors  and  villains,  were  single-minded, 
earnest,  valiant  men  ;  and,  as  for  even  O'Flynn,  and  those 
worse  than  him,  what  was  really  the  matter  with  them  was, 
that  they  were  too  honest — lh"y  s-polie  out  too  much  of  their 


180  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

whole  minds.  Bewildered,  like  Lear,  amid  the  social  storm, 
they  had  determined,  like  him,  to  become  "unsophisticated," 
"  to  owe  the  worm  no  silk,  the  cat  no  perfume" — seeing,  in 
deed,  that  if  they  had,  they  could  not  have  paid  for  them ;  so 
they  tore  off",  of  their  own  M'ill,  the  peacock's  feathers  of  gen 
tility,  the  sheep's  clothing  of  moderation,  even  the  fig-leaves 
of  decent  reticence,  and  became  just  what  they  really  were — 
just  what  hundreds  more  would  become,  who  now  sit  in  the 
high  places  of  the  earth,  if  it  paid  them  as  well  to  be  unre- 
spectable  as  it  does  to  be  respectable  ;  if  the  selfishness  and 
covetousness,  bigotry  and  ferocity,  which  are  in  them,  and 
more  or  less  in  every  man,  had  happened  to  enlist  them 
against  existing  evils,  instead  of  for  them.  O'Flynn  would 
have  been  gladly  as  respectable  as  they  ;  but,  in  the  first 
place,  he  must  have  starved ;  and  in  the  second  place,  ho 
must  have  lied  ;  for  he  believed  in  his  own  radicalism  with 
his  whole  soul.  There  was  a  ribald  sincerity,  a  frantic  cour- 
age in  the  man.  He  always  spoke  the  truth  when  it  suited 
him,  and  very  often  when  it  did  not.  He  did  see,  which  is 
more  than  all  do,  that  oppression  is  oppression,  and  humbug, 
humbug.  He  had  faced  the  gallows  before  now,  without 
flinching.  He  had  spouted  rebellion  in  the  Birmingham 
Bullring,  and  elsewhere,  and  taken  the  consequences  like  a 
man  ;  while  his  colleagues  left  their  dupes  to  the  tender  mer- 
cies of  bi'oadswords  and  bayonets,  and  decamped  in  the  dis- 
guise of  sailors,  old  women,  and  dissenting  preachers.  He  had 
sat  three  months  in  Lancaster  Castle,  the  Bastile  of  England, 
one  day  perhaps  to  fall  like  that  Parisian  one,  for  a  libel 
which  he  never  wrote,  because  he  would  not  betray  his  cow- 
ardlv  contributor.  He  had  twice  pleaded  his  own  cause, 
without  help  of  attorney,  and  showed  himself  as  practiced  in 
every  law-quibble  and  practical  cheat  as  if  he  had  been  a 
regularly-ordained  priest  of  the  blue-bag ;  and  each  time, 
when  hunted  at  last  into  a  corner,  had  turned  valiantly  to 
bay,  with  wild  witty  Irish  eloquence,  "  worthy,"  as  the  press 
say  of  poor  misguided  Mitchell,  "  of  a  better  cause."  Al- 
together, a  much-enduring  Ulysses,  unscrupulous,  tough-hided, 
ready  to  do  and  suffer  any  thing  fair  or  foul,  for  what  he 
honestly  believed — if  a  confused,  virulent  positiveness  be 
worthy  of  the  name  "  belief" — to  be  the  true  and  righteous 
cause. 

Those  who  class  all  mankind  compendiously  and  comforta- 
bly under  the  two  exhaustive  species  oi'  saints  and  villains, 
may  consider  such  a  description  garbled   and  impossibly,     I 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OHT.  181 

have  seen  few  men,  but  never  yet  met  I  among  those  few 
either  perfect  saint  or  perfect  villain.  I  draw  men  as  I  have 
found  them — inconsistent,  piecemeal,  better  than  their  own 
actions,  worse  than  their  own  opinions,  and  poor  O'Flynn 
among  the  rest.  Not  that  tlieio  were  no  questionable  spots 
in  the  sun  of  his  fair  fame.  It  was  whispered  that  he  had  in 
3ld  times  done  dirty  work  for  Dublin  Castle  bureaucrats — 
nay,  that  he  had  even,  in  a  very  hard  season,  written  court 
jjoetry  for  the  Morniyig  Post ;  but  all  these  little  peccadilloes 
he  carefully  vailed  in  that  kindly  mist  which  hung  over  his 
youthful  years,  lie  had  been  a  medical  student,  and  got 
plucked,  his  foes  declared,  in  his  examination.  He  had  set 
up  a  saving's  bank,  which  broke.  He  had  come  over  from 
Ireland,  to  agitate  for  "  repale  "  and  "rint,"  and,  like  a  wise 
man  as  he  was,  had  never  gone  back  again.  He  had  set  up 
three  or  four  papers  in  his  time,  and  entered  into  partnership 
with  every  leading  democrat  in  turn  ;  but  his  papers  failed, 
and  he  quarreled  with  his  partners,  being  addicted  to  profane 
swearing  and  personalities.  And  now  at  last,  after  Ulyssean 
wanderings,  he  had  found  rest  in  the  office  of  the  Weekly 
Warichoo2J,  if  rest  it  could  be  called,  that  perennial  hurricane 
of  plotting,  railing,  sneering,  and  bombast,  in  which  he  lived, 
never  writing  a  line,  on  principle,  till  he  had  worked  himself 
up  into  a  passion. 

I  will  dwell  no  more  on  so  distasteful  a  subject.  Such 
leaders,  let  us  hope,  belong  only  to  the  past — to  the. youthful 
self-will  and  licentiousness  of  democracy  ;  and  as  for  reviling 
O'Flynn,  or  any  other  of  his  class,  no  man  has  less  right  than 
myself,  I  fear,  to  cast  stones  at  such  as  they,  I  fell  as  low 
as  almost  any,  beneath  the  besetting  sins  of  my  class  ;  and 
shall  I  take  merit  to  myself,  because  God  has  shown  me,  a 
little  earlier,  perhaps,  than  to  them,  somewhat  more  of  the  true 
duties  and  destinies  of  The  Many  1  Oh,  that  they  could  see 
the  depths  of  my  aflection  for  them  I  Oh,  that  ihey  could 
see  the  shame  and  self-abasement  with  which,  in  rebuking 
their  sins,  I  confess  my  own  !  If  they  are  apt  to  be  flippant 
and  bitter,  so  was  I.  If  they  lust  to  destroy,  without  know- 
ing what  to  build  up  instead,  so  did  I.  If  they  make  an 
almighty  idol  of  that  Electoral  Reform,  which  ought  to  be, 
and  can  be,  only  a  preliminary  means,  and  expect  final  deliv- 
erance, from  "  their  twenty-thousandth  part  of  a  talker  in  the 
national  palaver,"  so  did  I.  Unhealthy  and  noisome  as  was 
the  literary  atino.sphere  in  which  I  now  found  myself,  it  waa 
one  to  my  taste.     The  very  contrast  between  the  peaceful, 


182  ALTON  LOCKK    TAILOR  AND  POET. 

miellectual  lijxaiy  which  I  had  just  witnessed,  and  the  mis 
eiy  of  my  class  and  myself,  quickcd  my  deh'ght  in  it.  Tn  bit- 
terness, in  sheer  envy,  I  threw  my  whole  soul  into  it,  and 
spoke  evil,  and  rejoiced  in  evil.  It  \vas  so  easy  to  find  fault ! 
It  pampered  my  own  self-conceit,  my  own  discontent,  while 
it  saved  me  the  trouble  of  inventing  remedies.  Yes  ;  it  was 
indeed  easy  to  find  fault.  "  The  world  was  all  before  me, 
where  to  choose."  In  such  a  disorganized,  anomalous, 
grumbling,  party-embittered  element  as  this  English  society, 
and  its  twin  pauperism  and  luxury,  I  had  but  to  look 
straight  before  me  to  see  my  prey. 

And  thus  1  became  daily  more  and  more  cynical,  fierce, 
reckless.  My  mouth  was  filled  with  cursing — and  too  often 
justly.  And  all  the  while,  like  tens  of  thousands  of  my  class, 
I  had  no  man  to  teach  me.  Sheep  scattered  on  the  hills,  we 
were,  that  had  no  shepherd.  What  wonder  if  our  bones  lay 
bleaching  among  rocks  and  quagmires,  and  \volves  devoured 
the  heritage  of  God  ? 

Mackaye  had  nothing  positive,  after  all,  to  advise  or  pro- 
pound. His  wisdom  was  one  of  apopthegms  and  maxims, 
utterly  impractical,  too  often  merely  negative,  as  was  his 
creed,  which,  though  he  refused  to  be  classed  with  any  sect, 
was  really  a  somewhat  undefined  Unitarianism — or  rather 
[slamism.  He  could  say,  with  the  old  Moslem,  "  God  is 
great— who  hath  resisted  his  will  ?"  And  he  believed  what 
he  said,  and  lived  manful  and  pure,  reverent  and  self-denying, 
by  that  belief,  as  the  first  Moslem  did.  But  that  was  not 
enough. 

"  Not  enough  ?     Merely  negative  ?" 

No — that  was  positive  enough,  and  mighty  ;  but  I  repeat 
it,  it  was  not  enough.  He  felt  it  so  himself;  for  he  grew 
more  and  more  cynical,  more  and  more  hopeless  about  the 
l)rospects  of  his  class  and  of  all  humanity.  Why  not  ?  Poor 
suflering  wretches  I  what  is  it  to  them  to  know  that  "  God  is 
great,"  unless  you  can  prove  to  them  that  God  is  also  merci- 
lul  1  Did  he  indeed  care  for  men  at  all  ?  was  what  I  longed 
to  know ;  was  all  this  misery  and  misrule  around  us  his  will 
— his  stern  and  nece.ssary  law — his  lazy  connivance  ?  And 
were  we  to  free  ourselves  from  it  by  any  frantic  means  that 
came  to  hand?  or  had  he  ever  interfered  himself?  Was 
there  a  chance,  a  hope,  of  his  interfering  now,  in  our  own 
time,  to  take  the  matter  into  his  own  hand,  and  come  out  of 
his    place  to  judge   the  earth  in  righteousness  ?      That  waa 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  Ifi3 

what  we  wanted  to  know  ;  and  poor  Mackaye  could  give  no 
comfort  there.  "  God  was  great — the  wicked  Avould  bo 
turned  into  hell."  Ay — the  few  willful,  triumphant  wicked ; 
but  the  millions  of  sullcring,  starving  wicked,  the  victims  of 
eociety  and  circumstance — what  hope  for  them  ?  "  God  was 
^reat."  And  for  the  clergy,  our  professed  and  salaried  teach- 
ers, all  I  can  say  is — and  there  are  tens,  perhaps  hundreds  of 
ihousands  of  workmen  who  can  re-echo  my  words — with  the 
exception  of  the  dean  and  my  cousin,  and  one  who  shall  be 
mentioned  hereafter,  a  clergymen  never  spoke  to  me  in  my 
life. 

Why  should  he?  Was  I  not  a  Chartist  and  an  Infi- 
del ?  The  truth  is,  the  clergy  are  afraid  of  us  To  read  the 
Dispatch,  is  to  be  excommunicated.  Young  men's  classes  1 
Honor  to  them,  however  few  they  are — however  hampered 
by  the  restrictions  of  religious  bigotry  and  political  coAvardice. 
But  the  working-men,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  do  not 
trust  them ;  they  do  not  trust  the  clergy  who  set  them  on 
foot ;  they  do  not  expect  to  be  taught  at  them  the  things 
they  long  to  know — to  be  taught  the  whole  truth  in  them 
about  history,  politics,  science,  the  Bible.  They  suspect  them 
to  be  mere  tubs  to  the  whale — mere  substitutes  for  education, 
slowly  and  late  adopted,  in  order  to  stop  the  mouths  of  the 
importunate.  They  may  misjudge  the  clergy  ;  but  whose 
fault  is  it  if  they  do  ?  Clergymen  of  England  I — look  at  the 
history  of  your  Establishment  lor  the  last  fifty  years,  and  say, 
what  wonder  is  it  if  the  artisan  mistrust  you  ?  Every  spirit- 
ual reform,  since  the  time  of  John  Wesley,  has  had  to  establish 
itself  in  the  teeth  of  insult,  calumny,  and  persecution.  Every 
ecclesiastical  reform  comes  not  fiotn  within,  but  from  without 
your  body.  Mr.  Horsman,  struggling  against  every  kind  of 
temporizing  and  trickery,  has  to  do  the  work  which  bishops, 
by  virtue  of  their  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords,  ought  to  have 
been  doing  years  ago.  Every  where  we  see  the  clergy,  with 
a  few  persecuted  exceptions  (like  Dr.  Arnold),  proclaiming 
themselves  the  advocates  of  Toryism,  the  dogged  opponents  of 
our  political  liberty,  living  either  by  the  accursed  system  of 
pew-rents,  or  else  by  one  which  depends  on  the  high  price  of 
corn  ;  chosen  exclusively  from  the  classes  who  crush  us  down  ; 
prohibiting  all  free  discussion  on  religious  points  ;  command- 
ing us  to  swallow  down,  Avith  faith  as  passive  and  implicit  as 
that  of  a  Papist,  the  very  creeds  from  which  their  own  bad 
example,  and  their  scanda.ous  neglect,  have,  in  the  last  three 
generations,  alienated  us;  never  mixing  with   the   thought 


184        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET 

ful  working-men,  except  in  the  prison,  the  hospital,  or  ji\ 
extreme  old  age  ;  betraying,  in  every  tract,  in  every  sermon, 
an  ignorance  of  the  doubts,  the  feehngs,  the  very  language  of 
the  masses,  which  would  be  ludicrous,  were  it  not  accursed 
before  God  and  man.  And  then  will  you  show  us  a  few 
tardy  improvements  here  and  there,  and  ask  vxs,  indignantly, 
why  we  distrust  you  ?  Oh  I  gentlemen,  if  you  can  not  see  for 
yourselves  the  causes  of  our  distrust,  it  is  past  our  power  to 
show  you.      We  must  leave  it  to  God. 

But  to  return  to  my  own  story.  I  had,  as  I  said  before,  to 
live  by  my  pen  ;  and  in  that  painful,  confused,  maimed  way, 
I  contrived  to  scramble  on  the  long  winter  through,  writing 
regularly  for  the  Weekly  WaricJwop,  and  sometimes  getting 
an  occasional  scrap  into  some  other  cheap  periodical,  often  on 
the  very  verge  of  starvation,  and  glad  of  a  handful  of  meal 
from  Sandy's  widow's  barrel.  If  I  had  had  more  than  my 
share  of  feasting  in  the  summer,  I  made  the  balance  even, 
during  those  frosty  mouths,  by  many  a  bitter  fast. 

And,  here  let  me  ask  you,  gentle  reader,  who  are  just  now 
considering  me  ungentle,  virulent,  and  noisy,  did  you  ever,  for 
one  day  in  your  whole  life,  literally,   involuntarily,   and  in 
spite  of  all  your  endeavors,  longings,  and  hungerings,  not  get 
enough  to  eat  ?     If  you  ever  have,  it  must  have  taught  you 
several  things. 
j       But  all  this  while,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  had  for- 
\  gotten  my  promise  to  good  Farmer  Porter,  to  look  for  his 
j  missing  son.     And,  indeed,  Crossthwaite  and  I  were  already 
i  engaged  in  a  similar  search  for  a  friend  of  his — the  young 
I  tailor,  who,  as  I  told  Porter,  had  been  lost  for  several  months. 
He  was  tlie  brother  of  Crossthwaite's  wife,  a  passionate,  kind- 
hearted  Irishman,  Mike  Kelly  by  name,  reckless  and  scatter- 
brained enough  to  get  himself  into  every  possible  scrape,  and 
weak  enough  of  will  never  to  get  himself  out  of  one.     For 
these  two,  Crossthwaite  and  I  had  searched  from  one  sweater's 
den  to  another,  and  searched  in  vain.     And  though  the  pres- 
ent interest  and  exertion  kept  us  both  from  brooding  over  our 
own  difficulties,  yet  in  the  long  run,  it  tended  only  to  embitter 
and   infuriate  our   minds.     The  frightful  scenes  of  hopeless 
misery  which  we  witnessed — ihe  ever  widening  pit  of  pauper- 
ism and  slavery,  gaping  for  fresh  victims  day  by  day,  as  they 
dropped  out  of  the  fast  lessening  "honorable  trade,"  into  \he 
ever-increasing  miseries  of  sweating,  piece-work,  and  starva- 
lioii-prices ;    the    horrible    certainty    that    the    fame    process 


ALTOiN  LOCKH,  TAILOR  AND  POET  I!}5 

which  was  devouring  our  trade,  was  slowly,  but  surely,  eat- 
ing up  every  other  alio  ;  the  knowledge  that  there  was  no 
remedy,  no  salvation  for  us  in  man,  that  political  economists 
had  declared  such  to  le  the  law  and  constitution  of  society, 
and  that  our  rulers  had  believed  that  message,  and  were 
determined  to  act  upon  it ; — if  all  these  things  did  not  go  far 
toward  maddening  us,  we  must  have  been  made  of  sterner 
stuff  thau  any  one  who  reads  this  book. 

At  last,  about  the  middle  of  January,  just  as  we  had  given 
up  the  search  as  hopeless,  and  poor  Katie's  eyes  were  getting 
red  and  swelled  with  daily  weeping,  a  fresh  spur  was  given  to 
our  exertions,  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  no  less  a  person 
than  the  farmer  himself.  What  ensued  upon  his  coming, 
must  be  kept  for  another  chapter. 


CHAPTEP^  XXI. 

THE  SWEATER'S  DEN. 

I  WAS  greedily  devouring  Lane's  "  Arabian  Nights,"  which 
had  made  their  llrst  appearance  in  the  shop  that  day. 

Mackaye  sat  in  his  usual  place,  smoking  a  clean  pipe,  and 
assisting  his  meditations  by  certain  mysterious  chironomic 
signs  ;  Avhile  opposite  to  him  was  Farmer  Porter — a  stone  or 
two  thinner  than  when  I  had  seen  him  last,  but  one  stone 
is  not  much  missed  out  of  seventeen.  His  forehead  looked 
smaller,  and  his  jaM'S  larger  than  ever  ;  and  his  red  face  was 
sad,  and  furrowed  with  care. 

Evidently,  too,  he  was  ill  at  ease  about  other  matters  be 
sides  his  son.  He  was  looking  out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes, 
first  at  the  skinless  cast  on  the  chimney-piece,  then  at  the 
crucified  books  hanging  over  his  head,  as  if  he  considered  them 
not  altogether  safe  companions,  and  rather  expected  some- 
thing "  uncanny"  to  lay  hold  of  him  from  behind — a  process 
which  involved  the  most  horrible  contortions  of  visage,  as  he 
carefully  abstained  from  stirring  a  muscle  of  his  neck  or  body, 
but  sat  bolt  upright,  his  elbows  pinned  to  his  sides,  and  his 
knees  as  close  together  as  his  stomach  would  permit,  like  a 
huge  corpulent  Egyptian  Memnon — the  most  ludicrous  con- 
trast to  the  little  old  man  opposite,  twisted  up  together  in  his 
Joseph's  coat,  like  some  wizard  magician  in  the  stories  which 
I  was  reading.  A  curious  pair  of  "  poles"  the  two  made ; 
the  mesothet  whereof,  by  no  means  a  ''  pimctum  indiferejis," 
but  a  true  connecting  spiritual  idea,  stood  on  the  table — in 
the  whisky-bottle. 

Farmer  Porter  was  evidently  big  with  some  great  thouijht, 
and  had  all  a  true  poet's  bashfulness  about  publishing  "the 
fruit  of  his  creative  genius.  He  looked  round  again  at  the 
skinless  man,  the  caricatures,  the  books ;  and  as  his  eye  wan- 
dered from  pile  to  pile,  and  shelf  to  shelf,  his  face  brightened, 
and  he  seemed  to  gain  courage. 

Solemnly  he  put  his  hat  on  his  knees,  and  began  solemnly 
brushing  it  with  his  cuff.  Then  he  saw  me  watching  him,  and 
stopped.  Then  he  put  his  pipe  solemnly  on  the  hob,  and  clear- 
ed his  throat  ft r  action,  while  I  buried  my  face  in  the  book. 

"  Them's  a  sight  o'  larned  beuks,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?" 

"  Humph  I" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOKT.  187 

"  VoAV  mauu  ba'  g5t  a  deal  o'  scholarship  among  they, 
rioo  1" 

"  Humph  ! ' 

"  Dee  yow  think,  noo,  yow  could  fnid  uf  my  hoy  out  of  uti, 
be  any  ways  o'  conjuring  like  V 

"  By  what  ?" 

"  Conjuring — to  strick  a  perpendicular,  iioo,  or  say  the 
Lord's  Prayer  backwards?" 

"  Wadna  ye  prefer  a  meeracle  or  twa  ?'  asked  Sandy,  after 
'I  long  pull  at  the  whisky-toddy. 

"  Or  a  few  efrects  V   added  I. 

"Whatsoever  you  likes,  gentlemen.  You're  best  judges, 
',0  be  sure,"  answered  Farmer  Porter,  in  au  awed  and  help- 
'e£s  voice. 

"  Aweel — I'm  no  that  disinclined  to  believe  in  the  occult 
icieiices.  I  dimia  baud  a'thegither  wi'  Salverte.  There 
was  mair  in  them  than  Magia  naturalis,  I'm  thinking.  Mes- 
merism and  magic-lauterns,  benj  and  opium,  winna  explain 
all  facts,  Alton,  laddie.  Dootless  they  w^ere  an  unco'  barbaric 
an'  empiric  method  o'  expressing  the  gran'  truth  o'  man's 
mastery  ovver  matter.  But  the  interpcnetration  o'  the  spirit- 
ual au'  physical  w^orlds  is  a  gran'  truth  too;  an'  aiblins  the 
Drity  might  ha'  allowed  witchcraft,  just  to  teach  that  to  puir 
bu.barous  folk — signs  and  wonders,  laddie,  to  make  them  be- 
lieve in  somewhat  mair  than  the  beasts  that  perish  :  an'  so 
ghaists  an'  warlocks  might  be  a  necessary  element  o'  the 
divine  education  in  dark  and  carnal  times.  But  I've  no  read 
o'  a  case  in  which  necromancy,  nor  geomancy,  nor  coskino- 
mancy,  nor  ony  ither  mancy,  was  applied  to  sic  a  purpose  as 
this.  Unco  gude  they  were,  may  be,  for  the  discovery  u' 
stolen  spunes — but  no  that  o'  stolen  tailors.'" 

Farmer  Porter  had  listened  to  this  harangue,  with  mouth 
and  eyes  gradually  expanding  between  awe  and  the  desire 
to  comprehend  ;  but  at  the  last  sentence  his  countenance  fell. 

"  So  Pm  thinking  Mister  Porter,  that  the  best  witch  in 
eiccan  a  case  is  ane  that  ye  may  find  at  the  police-office." 

"  Anan  ?" 

"  Thae  detectivi;  police  are  grau'  necromancers  an'  canny 
in  their  way  :  an'  1  just  took  the  liberty,  a  week  agone,  to  ha' 
a  crack  wi'  ane  o'  'eni.  And  noo,  gin  ye're  inclined,  we'll 
leave  the  whusky  awhile,  an'  gang  up  to  that  cave  o'  Troph- 
awnius,  ca'd  by  the  vulgar  Bow-street,  an'  speir  for  tidings 
o'  the  twa  lost  sheep." 

5^o  to  Bow-street  we  went  and  found  our  man,  to  whom 


188  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

the  farmer  bowed  with  ohsequiousness  most  imhke  his  us*  .,i 
burly  independence.  He  evidently  half  suspected  him  co 
have  deaUngs  with  the  world  of  spirits  :  but  whether  he  had 
such  or  not,  they  had  been  utterly  unsuccessful ;  and  we 
walked  back  again,  with  the  farmer  between  us  half  blub- 
bering: 

"1  tell  ye,  there's  nothing  like  ganging  to  a  wise  'ooman. 
Bless  ye,  I  mind  one  up  to  Guy  Hall,  when  I  was  a  barn, 
that  two  Irish  reapers  coom  down,  and  murthured  her  for  the 
money — and  if  you  lost  aught  she'd  vind  it,  so  sure  as  the 
church — and  a  mighty  hand  to  cure  burns  ;  and  they  two 
villians  coom  back,  after  harvest,  seventy  mile  to  do  it — and 
when  my  vather's  cows  was  shrew-struck,  she  made  un  be 
draed  under  a  brimble  as  growed  together  at  the  both  ends, 
she  a-praying  like  mad  all  the  time  ;  and  they  never  got 
nothing  but  fourteen  shilling  and  a  oi-ooked  sixpence  ;  for 
why,  the  devil  carried  off  all  the  rest  of  her  money  :  and  I 
seen  'um  both  a-hanging  in  chains  by  Wisbeach  river,  with 


mad  loike,  it  do.     I  tell  ye  there's  nowt  like  a  wise  'ooman, 
for  vinding  out  the  likes  o'  this." 

At  this  hopeful  stage  of  the  argument  I  left  them,  to  go  to 
the  Magazine-office.  As  I  passed  through  Covent  Garden,  a 
pretty  young  woman  stopped  me  under  a  gas-lamp.  I  was 
pushing  on,  when  I  saw  that  it  was  Jemmy  Downes's  Irish 
wife,  and  saw,  too,  that  she  did  not  recognize  me.  A  sudden 
instinct  made  me  stop  and  hear  what  she  had  to  say. 

"  Shure  then,  and  yer  a  tailor,  my  young  man?" 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  nettled  a  little  that  my  late  loathed  profes- 
sion still  betrayed  itself  in  my  gait. 

"From  the  counthry  ?" 

I  nodded,  though  I  dare  not  speak  a  white  lie  to  that  efTect. 
I  fancied  that,  somehow,  through  her  I  might  hear  of  poor 
Kelly  and  his  friend  Porter. 

"  Ye'll  be  wanting  work  thin  V 

"  I  have  no  work." 

"  Och  liien,  it's  I  can  show  ye  the  flower  o'  work,  I  can 
Bedad,  there's  a  shop  I  know  of  where  ye'll  earn — bedad,  if 
ye're  the  ninth  part  of  a  man,  let  alone  a  handy  young  fellow 
like  the  lo  «ks  of  you — och,  ye'll  earn  thirty  shillings  the  week, 
to  the  very  least — an'  beautiful  lodgings;  och,  thin,  just  come 
and   see    em— as   chape   as   mother's   milk  !      Come  along 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  PORT.        189 

thin — och,  it's  the  beauty  ye  are — just  the  nate  figure  for  a 
tailor." 

The  fancy  still  possessed  me;  and  I  went  with  her  through 
one  dingy  back  street  after  another.  She  seemed  to  be  pur- 
posely taking  an  indirect  road,  to  mislead  me  as  to  my  where- 
abouts ;  but  after  a  half  hour's  walking,  I  knew,  as  well  as 
she,  that  we  were  in  one  of  the  most  miserable  slop-working 
nests  of  the  East-end. 

She  stopped  at  a  house  door,  and  hurried  me  in,  up  to  the 
first  floor,  and  into  a  dirty,  slatternly  parlor,  smelling  infa- 
mously of  gin  ;  where  the  first  object  I  beheld  was  Jemmy 
Downes,  sitting  belbre  the  fire,  three  parts  drunk,  with  a 
couple  of  dirty,  squalling  children  on  the  hearth  rug,  whom 
he  was  kicking  and  cuffing  alternately. 

"Och,  thin,  ye  villain,  bating  the  poor  darlints  whinever  I 
iave  ye  a  minute  '"  and  pouring  out  a  volley  of  Irish  curse.s, 
she  caught  up  the  urchins,  one  under  each  arm,  and  kissed 
and  hugged  them  till  they  were  nearly  choked. 

"  Och,  ye  plague  o'  my  life — as  drunk  as  a  baste  ;  an'  I 
brought  home  this  darlint  of  a  young  gentleman  to  help  ye  in 
the  business." 

Downes  got  up,  and  steadying  himself  by  the  table,  leered 
at  me  with  lack-lustre  ej'es,  and  attempted  a  little  ceremoni- 
ous politeness.  Hov/  this  was  to  end  I  did  not  see  ;  but  I 
was  determined  to  carry  it  through,  on  the  chance  of  success, 
infinitely  small  as  that  might  be. 

"  An'  I've  told  him  thirty  shillings  a  week's  the  least  he'll ' 
earn;  and  charges  for  board  and  lodging  only  seven  shillings." 

"Thirty!  —  she  lies;  she's  always  a-lying  ;  don't  you 
mind  her.  Five-and-forty  is  the  werry  lowest  figure.  Ask 
my  respectable  and  most  piousest  partner,  Shemei  Solomons. 
Why,  blow  me — it's  Locke  I" 

"  Yes,  it  is  Locke  ;  and  surely  you're  my  old  friend.  Jemmy 
Downes  ?  Shake  hands.  What  an  unexpected  pleasure  to 
meet  you  again  I" 

"  Werry  unexpected  pleasure.  Tip  us  your  daddle  I  De- 
lighted— delighted,  as  I  was  a-saying,  to  be  of  the  least  use  to 
yer.  Take  a  caulker ?  Summat  heavy,  then?  No?  'Tak' 
a  drap  o'  kindness  yet,  for  auld  langsyne  ?'  " 
"  You  forget  I  was  always  a  teetotaler." 
"Ay,"  with  a  look  of  unfeigned  pity.  "An'  you're  a-going 
to  lend  us  a  hand  1  Oh,  ah  I  perhaps  you'd  like  to  begin  ? 
Heres  a  most  beautiful  uniform,  now,  for  a  markis  in  her 
Majesty's  Guards;  we  don't  mention  names — tarn't  business 


190  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

iike.  P'r'aps  you'd  like  best  to  work  here  to-night,  for  com- 
pany— '  for  auld  langsyne,  my  boys ;'  and  I'll  introduce  yer  to 
to  the  gents  up-stairs  to-morrow." 

"No,"  I  said ;   "I'll  go  up  at  once,  if  you've  no  objection.' 
"  Och,  thin,  but  the  sheets  isn't  aired — no — faix  ;  and  I'm 
thinking  the  gentleman  as  is  a-going  isn't  gone  yet." 

But  I  insisted  on  going  up  at  once  ;  and,  grumbling,  she 
followed  me.  1  stopped  on  the  landing  of  the  second  floor, 
and  asked  which  way;  and  seeing  her  in  no  hurry  to  answer, 
opened  a  door,  inside  which  I  heard  the  hum  of  many  voices, 
saying  in  as  sprightly  a  tone  as  I  could  niuster,  that  I  sup- 
posed that  was  the  workroom. 

As  I  had  expected,  a  fetid,  choking  den,  with  just  room 
enough  in  it  for  the  seven  or  eight  sallow,  starved  beings, 
who,  coatless,  shoeless,  and  ragged,  sat  stitching,  each  on  his 
truckle-bed.  I  glanced  round  ;  the  man  whom  I  sought  was 
not  there. 

My  heart  fell ;  why  it  had  ever  risen  to  such  a  pitch  of 
hope  I  can  not  tell ;  and  half  cursing  myself  for  a  fool,  in  thus 
wildly  thrusting  my  head  into  a  squabble,  I  turned  back  and 
shut  the  door,  saying, 

"  A  very  pleasant  room,  ma'am,  but  a  leelle  too  crowded." 

Before  she  could  answer,  the  opposite  door  opened  ;  and  ? 
face  appeared — unwashed,  unshaven,  shrunken  to  a  slceletou 
I  did  not  recognize  it  at  first. 

"Blei3.sed  Vargen  !  but  that  Avasn't  your  voice,  Locke?" 

"  And  who  are  you  ?" 

"  Tear  and  ages  I  and  he  don't  know  Mike  Kelly  !" 

My  first  impulse  was  to  catch  him  up  in  my  anus,  and 
run  down  stairs  with  him.  I  controlled  myself  however,  not 
knoM'ing  how  far  he  might  be  in  his  tyrant's  power.  But  his 
voluble  Irish  heart  burst  out  at  once  : 

"  Oh  !  blessed  saints,  take  me  out  o'  this  I — take  me  out, 
for  the  love  of  Jesus  I — take  me  out  o"  this  hell,  or  I'll  go  mad 
intircly  I  Och  I  will  nobody  have  pity  on  poor  sowls  in  pur- 
gatory— here  in  prison  like  negur  slaves  1  We're  starved  to 
the  bone,  we  arc,  and  kilt  intirely  with  cowld." 

And  as  he  clutched  my  arm,  with  his  long,  skinny,  trem- 
bling fingers,  I  saw  that  his  hands  and  feet  were  all  chapped 
and  bleeding.  Neither  shoe  nor  stocking  did  he  possess  ;  his 
only  garments  were  a  ragged  shirt  and  trowsers  ;  and — and, 
in  horrible  mockery  of  his  own  misery,  a  grand  new  flowered 
satin  vest,  which  to-morrow  M'as  to  figure  in  some  gorsreous 
shop-window  I 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILC  R  A.ND  POET  191 

"  Uch  I  Mother  of  Heaven  I"  he  went  on,  wildly,  '•  when 
will  I  get  out  to  the  fresh  air  ?  For  five  months  I  haven't 
seen  the  blessed  light  of  sun,  nor  spoken  to  the  praste,  nor  ate 
a  bit  o'  mate,  barring  bread-and-butter.  Shure  it's  all  the 
blessed  sabbaths  and  saints'  days  I've  been  a-working  like  a 
haythen  Jew,  and  niver  seen  the  insides  o'  the  chapel  to  con- 
fess my  sins,  and  me  poor  sowl's  lost  intirely — and  they've 
pawned  the  relaver*  this  fifteen  weeks,  and  not  a  boy  of  us 
iver  sot  foot  in  the  street  since." 

"Vot's  that  row?"  roared  at  this  juncture  Downes's  voice 
from  below. 

"  Och,  thin,"  shrieked  the  woman,  "  here's  that  thief  o' 
the  warld,  Micky  Kelly,  slandhering  o'  us  afore  the  blessed 
heaven,  and  he  owing  £2.  14s.  0\d.  for  his  board  an'  lodgin', 
let  alone  pawn-tickets,  and  goin'  to  rin  away,  the  black-heart 
ed  ongrateful  sarpent  I"  And  she  began  yelling,  indiscrimi 
natcly  "  Thieves  1"  "Murder!"  "Blasphemy!"  and  such  other 
ejaculations,  which  (the  English  ones  at  least)  had  not  the 
e'lightest  reference  to  the  matter  in  hand. 

"  111  come  to  him  !"  said  Downes,  with  an  oath,  and  rush- 
ed stumbling  up  the  stairs,  while  the  poor  wretch  sneaked  in 
again,  and  slammed  the  door  to.  Downes  battered  at  it,  but 
was  met  with  a  volley  of  curses  from  the  men  inside  ;  while, 
profiting  by  the  Babel,  I  blew  out  the  light,  ran  down-stairs, 
and  got  safe  into  the  street. 

In  two  hours  afterward,  Mackaye,  Porter,  Crossthwaite, 
and  I  were  at  the  door,  accompanied  by  a  policeman,  and  a 
search-warrant.  Porter  had  insisted  on  accompanying  us. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  that  his  son  was  at  Downes's  ; 
and  all  representations  of  the  smallness  of  his  chance  Avere 
fruitless.  He  worked  himself  up  into  a  state  of  complete 
frenzy,  and  flourished  a  huge  stick  in  a  way  which  shocked 
the  policeman's  orderly  and  legal  notions. 

"  That  may  do  very  well  down  in  your  countr}^  sir ;  but 
you  aren't  a  goin'  to  use  that  there  weapon  here,  you  know, 
not  by  no  hact  o'  Parliament  as  I  knows  on." 

"  Ow,  it's  joost  a  way  I  ha'  wl'  me."  And  the  stick  was 
quiet  for  fifty  yards  or  so,  and  then  recommenced  smashing 
imaginary  skulls. 

"You'll  do  somebody  a  mischief,  sir,  with  that.  You'd 
much  better  a  lend  it  me," 

*  A  coal,  \vc  uiulerstand,  which  is  kept  by  the  coatless  wretches  in 
ihcse  sweaters'  dungeons,  to  be  used  by  each  of  them  in  turn  whoa 
thev  want  to  ko  out. — Editor. 


lai  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Portei  tucked  it  under  his  arm  for  fifty  yards  more  ;  and 
so  on,  till  we  reached  DowTies's  house. 

The  policeman  knocked  ;  and  the  door  was  opened,  cavi- 
tiously  by  an  old  Jew,  of  a  most  un-"  Caucasian"  cast  of 
features,  however  "  high  nosed,"  as  Mr.  Disraeli  has  it. 

The  policeman  asked  to  see  Michael  Kelly. 

"  Michaelsh  ■?  I  do't  know  such  namesh — "  But  before 
the  parley  could  go  further,  the  farmer  burst  past  policeman 
and  Jew,  and  rushed  into  the  passage,  roaring,  in  a  voice 
which  made  the  very  windows  rattle, 

"  Billy  Poorter  I  Billy  Poorter  I  whor  be  yow  ?  whor  be 
yow  ]" 

We  all  followed  him  up-stairs,  in  time  to  see  him  charging 
valiantly,  with  his  stick  for  a  bayonet,  the  small  person  of  a 
Jew-boy,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  in  a  scientific 
attitude.  The  young  rascal  planted  a  dozen  blows  in  the 
huge  carcase — he  might  as  well  have  thumped  the  rhinoceros 
in  the  Regent's  Park  ;  the  old  man  ran  right  over  him,  with- 
out stopping,  and  dashed  up  the  stairs  ;  at  the  head  of  which 
— oh,  joy  I — appeared  a  long,  shrunken,  red-haired  figure,  the 
tears  on  its  dirty  cheeks  glittering  in  the  candle-glare.  In  an 
instant,  father  and  son  were  in  each  other's  arms. 

"  Oh,  my  barn  I  my  barn  I  my  barn  I  my  barn  I"  and  then 
the  old  Hercules  held  him  ofl'  at  arm's  length,  and  looked  at 
him  with  a  wistful  face,  and  hugged  him  again  with  "  My 
barn  I  my  barn  I"  He  had  nothing  else  to  say.  Was  it  not 
enough?  And  poor  Kelly  danced  frantically  around  them, 
hurrahing ;  his  own  sorrows  forgotten  in  his  friend's  deliver- 
ance. 

The  Jew-boy  shook  him-self,  turned,  and  darted  down-staira 
past  us  ;  the  policeman  quietly  put  out  his  foot,  tripped  him 
headlong,  and  jumping  down  alter  him,  extracted  from  his 
grasp  a  heavy  pocket-book. 

"  Ah  I  my  dear  mothersh's  dying  gift  I  Oh,  dear  I  oh 
dear !  give  it  back  to  a  poor  orphansh  !" 

"  Didn't  I  see  you  take  it  out  o'  the  old  'un's  pocket — you 
young  villain  ?"  answered  the  maintainer  of  order,  as  he 
shoved  the  book  into  his  bosom,  and  stood  with  one  foot  on  his 
writhing  victim,  a  complete  nineteenth-century  St.  Michael 

"Let  me  hold  him,"  I  said,  "  while  you  go  up-stairs." 

"  You  hold  a  Jew-boy  I — you  hold  a  mad  cat  I"  answered 
the  policeman,  contemptuously — and  with  justice — for  at  that 
Hioment  Downes  appeared  on  the  first-floor  landing,  cursing 
and  blaspheming. 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POKT.  J93 

"He's  my  'prentice  I  he's  my  servant  I  I've  got  a  bond, 
with  his  own  hand  to  it,  to  serve  me  for  three  years.  I'll 
have  the  law  ot"you — I  will  I" 

Then  the  meaning  of  the  big  stick  came  out.  The  old 
man  leapt  down  the  stairs,  and  seized  Downes.  "  You're  the 
tyrant  as  has  locked  my  barn  up  here  I"  and  a  thrashing  com- 
menced, which  it  made  my  bones  ache  only  to  look  at. 
Downes  had  no  chance  ;  the  old  man  felled  him  on  his  face 
in  a  couple  of  blows,  and  taking  both  hands  to  his  stick, 
n(!wed  away  at  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  log. 

"I  waint  hit  a's  head  !  I  waint  hit  a's  head  !" — whack, 
whack.  "Let  me  be!" — whack,  whack — puff.  "It  does 
me  gude,  it  does  me  gude  I"  pufi^  puff,  pufl^^ — whack.  "  I've 
been  a  bottling  of  it  up  for  three  years,  come  Whitsuntide  I" 
— whack,  wliack,  whack — while  Mackaye  and  Crossthwaite 
stood  coolly  looking  on,  and  the  wife  shut  herself  up  in  the 
side-room,  and  screamed  murder. 

The  unhappy  policeman  stood  at  his  wit's  end,  between 
the  prisoner  below,  and  the  breach  of  the  peace  above,  bel- 
lowing in  vain,  in  the  Queen's  name,  to  us,  and  to  the  grin- 
ning tailors  on  the  landing.  At  last,  as  Downes's  life  seemed 
in  danger,  he  wavered  ;  the  Jew-boy  seized  the  moment,  jump- 
ed up,  upsetting  the  constable,  dashed  like  an  eel  between 
Crossthwaite  and  Mackaye,  gave  me  a  back-handed  blow  in 
passing,  which  I  felt  for  a  week  after,  and  vanished  through 
the  street-door,  which  he  locked  after  him. 

"Very  well!"  said  the  functionary,  rising  solemnly,  and 
pulling  out  a  note-book — "  Scar  under  left  eye,  nose  a  little 
twisted  to  the  right,  bad  chilblains  on  the  hands.  You'll 
keep  till  next  time,  young  man.  Now,  you  fat  gentleman 
up  there,  have  you  done  a  qualifying  of  yourself  for  New- 
gate?" 

The  old  man  had  run  up-stairs  again,  and  was  hugging  his 
son  ;  but  when  the  pohceman  lifted  Downes,  he  rushed  back 
to  his  victim,  and  begged  like  a  great  school-boy,  for  leave  to 
"  bet  him  joost  won  bit  moor." 

"  Let  me  bet  un  !  I'll  pay  un  ! — I'll  pay  all  as  my  son 
owes  un  I  Marcy  me  !  where's  my  pooss  ?"  and  so  on  raged 
the  Babel,  till  we  got  the  two  poor  fellows  safe  out  of  the 
nou.se — we  had  to  break  open  the  door  to  do  it,  thanks  to  that 
imp  of  Israel. 

"  For  God's  sake,  take  us  too  !"  almost  screamed  five  or 
f.ix  other  voices. 

"They're  all  in  debt — every  onesh  ;  they  sha'n't  go  till 
f 


i:))        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

tliey  paysli,  if  there's  law  in  England,"  whined  tiie  old  Jew, 
who  had  re-appeared. 

"  I'll  pay  for  'em — I'll  pay  every  farden,  if  so  be  as  they 
treated  my  boy  well.  Here,  you,  Mr.  Locke,  there's  the  ten 
pounds  as  I  promised  you.      Why,  whor  is  my  pooss  ?" 

The  policeman  solemnly  handed  it  to  him.  He  took  it, 
turned  it  over,  looked  at  the  policeman  half  frightened,  and 
pointed  with  his  fat  thumb  at  Mackaye. 

"  Well,  ho  said  as  you  was  a  conjurer — and  sure  he  was 
right." 

He  paid  me  the  money.  I  had  no  mind  to  keep  it  in 
such  company  ;  so  I  got  the  poor  fellows'  pawn-tickets,  and 
Crossthwaite  and  I  took  their  things  out  for  them.  When 
we  returned,  we  found  them  in  a  group  in  the  passage,  hold- 
ing the  door  open,  in  their  fear  lest  we  should  be  locked  up. 
or  entrapped  in  some  way.  Their  spirits  seemed  utterly 
broken.  Some  three  or  four  went  off  to  lodge  where  they 
could  ;  the  majority  went  up-stairs  again  to  work.  That, 
even  that  dungeon,  was  their  only  home — their  only  hope,  as 
it  is  of  thousands  of  "  free"  Englishmen  at  this  moment. 

We  returned,  and  found  the  old  man  with  his  new-found 
prodigal  sitting  on  his  knee,  as  if  he  had  been  a  baby.  Sandy 
told  me  afterward,  that  he  had  scarcely  kept  him  from  carry- 
ing the  young  man  all  the  way  home  ;  he  mms  convinced  that 
the  poor  fellow  was  dying  of  starvation.  T  think  really  he 
was  not  far  wrong.  In  the  corner  sat  Kelly,  crouched  to- 
^'^ether  like  a  baboon,  blubbering,  hurrahing,  invoking  the 
saints,  cursing  the  sweaters,  and  blessing  the  present  company. 
We  were  afraid,  for  several  days,  that  his  wits  were  seriously 
affected. 

And,  in  his  old  arm-chair,  pipe  in  mouth,  sat  good  Sandy 
Mackaye,  wiping  his  eyes  with  the  many-colored  sleeve,  and 
moralizing  to  himself,  sotto  voce: 

"  The  auld  Romans  rjade  slaves  o'  their  debitors ;  sae  did 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  for  a  good  Major  Cartwright  has  writ  to 
the  contrary.  But  I  didna  ken  the  same  Christian  practice 
was  part  o'  the  Breetish  constitution.  Aweel,  aweel — atween 
Hiot  Acts,  Government  by  Commissions,  and  ither  little  ex- 
tra vagants  and  codicils  o'  Mammon's  making,  it's  no  that 
easy  to  ken,  the  day,  what  is  the  Breetish  constitution,  and 
what  isn't.     Tak'  a  drappie,  Billy  Porter,  lad  ?" 

"Never  again  so  long  as  I  live.  I've  learnt  a  lesson  and 
a  half  about  that,  these  last  few  months." 

"  Aweel,  moderation's  best,  but  abstinence  better  than  nae 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POHT. 


thing.  Nae  man  sail  deprive  me  o'  my  Iceberty,  but  I'll  > 
tempt  nae  man  to  gie  up  his."  And  he  actually  put  the  I 
whisky-bottle  by  into  the  cupboard. 

The  old  man  and  his  son  went  home  next  day,  promisiuc 
rne,  if  I  would  but  come  to  see  them,  "  twa  hundert  acres  o' 
th'^  best  partridge-shooting,  and  wild  dooks  as  plenty  as  spar- 
rows; and  to  live  in  clover  till  I  bust,  if  I  liked."  And  so, 
as  Bunyt'm  has  it,  they  went  on  their  way,  and  I  saw  them 
no  more. 


y 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

AN  EMERSONIAN  SERMON. 

Certainly,  if  John  Crossthwaiteheld  the  victim-of-ch-cum- 
stance  doctrine  in  theory,  he  did  not  allow  Mike  Kelly  to 
plead  it  in  practice,  as  an  extenuation  of  his  misdeeds.  Very 
diflerent  from  his  Owenite  "  it's-nohody's-fault"  harangues  in 
the  debating  society,  or  his  admiration  for  the  teacher  of 
whom  my  readers  shall  have  a  glimpse  shortly,  was  his  lec- 
ture that  evening  to  the  poor  Irishman  on  "  It's  all  your  own 
I'ault."  Unhappy  Kelly  I  he  sat  there  like  a  beaten  cur. 
looking  first  at  one  of  us,  and  then  at  the  other,  for  mercy 
and  finding  none.  As  soon  as  Crossthwaite's  tongue  was 
tired,  Mackaye's  began,  on  the  sins  of  drunkenness,  hastiness, 
improvidence,  over-trustfulness,  &c.,  &c.,  and,  above  all,  on  the 
cardinal  ofi^ense  of  not  having  signed  the  protest  years  before, 
and  spurned  the  dishonorable  trade,  as  we  had  done.  Even 
his  most  potent  excuse  that  "  a  boy  must  live  somehow," 
Crossthwaite  treated  as  contemptuously  as  if  he  had  been  a 
very  Leonidas,  while  Mackaye  chimed  in  with, 

"  An'  ye  a  Papist  I  ye  talk  o'  praying  to  saints  an'  martyrs, 
that  died  in  torments  because  they  wad  na  do  what  they 
should  na  do  ?  What  ha'  ye  to  do  wi'  martyrs  ?  a  raeeser- 
able  wretch  that  sells  his  soul  for  a  mess  o'  pottage — four 
slices  per  diem  o'  thin  bread  and  butter  ?  Et  propter  veetam 
veevendi  perdere  causas !  Dinna  tell  me  o'  your  hardships — 
ye've  had  your  deserts — your  rights  were  just  equivalent  to 
your  mights,  an'  so  ye  got  them." 

"  Faix  then,  Misther  Mackaye,  darlint,  an'  whin  did  I 
dcsarve  to  pawn  me  own  goose  an'  board,  an'  sit  looking  at 
the  spidthers  for  the  want  o'  them  ?" 

"  Pawn  his  ain  goose  ?  Pawn  himsel' !  pawn  his  needle — 
gin  it  had  been  worth  the  pawning,  they'd  ha'  ta'en  it.  An 
yet  there's  a  command  in  Deuteronomy,  Ye  shall  na  tak'  the 
millstone  in  pledge,  for  it's  a  man's  life  ;  nor  yet  keep  his 
raiment  owre  night,  but  gie  it  the  puir  body  back,  that  he 
may  sleep  in  his  ain  claes,  an'  bless  ye.  O — but  pawn 
brokers  dinna  care  for  blessings — na  marketable  value  in  them 
whatsoever." 

"  And  the  shopkeeper,"  said  I,  "  in  the  '  Arabian  Nights,' 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  193 

refuses  to  take  the  fishevmau's  net  in  pledge,  beeause  lie  gels 
his  hving  thereby." 

"  Ech  I  but,  laddie,  they  were  puir  legal  Jews,  under  car- 
nal ordinances,  an'  daur  na  even  tak  an  honest  five  per  cent, 
interest  for  their  money.  An'  the  baker  o'  Bagdad,  why  he 
was  a  benighted  heathen,  ye  ken,  and  deceivit  by  that  fause 
prophet,  Mahomet,  to  his  eternal  damnation,  or  he  wad  never 
ha'  gone  aboot  to  fancy  a  fisherman  was  his  brither" 

"  Faix,  an'  ain't  we  all  brothers  ?"  asked  Kelly. 

"  Ay,  and  no,"  said  Sandy,  with  an  expression  which 
would  have  been  a  smile,  but  for  its  depth  of  bitter  earnest- 
ness ;  "  brethern  in  Christ,  my  laddie." 

"  An'  ain't  that  all  over  the  same  ?" 

"  Ask  the  preachers.  Gin  they  meant  brothers,  they'd  say 
brothers,  be  sure  ;  but  because  they  don't  mean  brothers  at 
a',  they  say  brethern — ye'll  mind,  brethern — to  soun'  anti- 
quate,  an'  professional,  an'  perfunctory-like,  for  fear  it  should 
be  owre  real,  an'  practical,  an'  startling,  an'  a'  that ;  and 
then  jist  limit  it  down  wi'  a  '  in  Christ,'  for  fear  o'  owre  wide 
applications,  and  a'  that.     But 

'  For  a'  that;  an'  a'  that, 
It's  comin'  yet  for  a'  that, 
When  man  an'  man,  the  warld  owre, 
Shall  brothers  be  for  a'  that — 

An'  na  brithren  ony  mair  at  a'  !" 

"  An'  didn't  the  blessed  Jesus  die  for  all  ?" 

"  "What  ?  for  heretics,  Micky  ?'" 

"  Bedan  thin,  an'  I  forgot  that  intirely  I" 

"  Of  course  you  did  !  It's  strange,  laddie,"  said  he  tummg 
to  me,  "  that  that  Name  suld  be  every  where,  fra  the  thun- 
derers  o'  Exeter  Ha'  to  this  puir  feckless  Paddy,  the  watch- 
word o'  exclusiveness.  I'm  thinking  ye'll  no  find  the  work- 
men believe  in  't,  till  somebody  can  fin'  the  plan  o'  making  it 
the  sign  o'  universal  comprehension.  Gin  1  had  na  seen  in 
my  youth  that  a  brither  in  Christ  meant  less  a  thousandfold 
than  a  brither  out  o'  him,  I  might  ha'  believit  the  noo — we'll 
no  say  what.  I've  an  owre  great  organ  o'  marvelousness, 
an'  o'  veneration  too,  I'm  afeard." 

"Ah,"  said  Crossthwaite,  "you  should  come  and  hear  Mr. 
Windrush  to-night,  about  the  all-embracing  benevolence  of 
the  Deity,  and  tlie  abomination  of  limiting  it  by  all  those  nar- 
row creeds  and  dogmas." 

"An'  wha's  Meester  Windrush,  then?" 

"  Oh,  he's  an  American ;    he  was  a  Calvinist  preachei 


193  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

originallj,  I  believe  ;  but,  as  he  told  us  last  Sunday  evening, 
he  soon  cast  away  the  worn-out  vestures  of  an  obsolete  faith, 
which  were  fast  becoming  only  crippling  fetters." 

"  An'  ran  oot  sarkless  on  the  public,  eh  ?  I'm  afeard 
there's  mony  a  man  else  that  throws  awa'  the  gude  auld 
plaid  o'  Scots  Puritanism,  an'  is  unco  fain  to  cover  his  naked- 
ness wi'  ony  cast  popinjay's  feathers  he  can  forgather  wi'. 
Aweel,  aweel — a  pair  priestless  age  it  is,  the  noo.  We'll 
e'en  gang  hear  him  the  nicht,  Alton,  laddie  ;  ye  ha'  na  dark- 
ened the  kirk  door  this  mony  a  day — nor  I  neither,  mair  by 
token." 

"  It  was  too  true.  I  had  utterly  given  up  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  religion  as  insoluble.  I  believed  in  poetry,  science, 
and  democracy — and  they  were  enough  for  me  then  ;  enough, 
at  least,  to  leave  a  mighty  hunger  in  my  heart,  I  knew  not 
for  what.  And  as  for  Mackaye,  though  brought  iip,  as  he 
told  me,  a  rigid  Scotch  Presbyterian,  he  had  gradually  ceased 
to  attend  the  church  of  his  fathers. 

"  It  was  no  the  kirk  o'  his  fathers — the  auld  God-trusting 
kirk  that  Clavers  dragoonit  dov/n  by  burns  and  muirsides.  It 
was  a'  gane  dead  an'  dry ;  a  piece  of  Auld-Bailey  barristration 
anent  soul-saving  dodges.  What  did  he  want  wi'  proofs  o' 
tlie  being  o'  God,  an'  o'  the  doctrine  o'  original  sin  ?  Pie 
could  see  enough  o'  them  ayont  the  shop-door,  ony  tide.  They 
made  puir  Rabbie  Burns  an  anything-arian,  wi'  their  blethers, 
an'  he  was  near  gaun  the  same  gate." 

And,  besides,  he  absolutely  refused  to  enter  any  place  of 
worship  where  there  were  pews.  "  He  wad  na  follow  after  a 
multitude  to  do  evil  ;  he  wad  na  gang  before  his  Maker  wi' 
a  lee  in  his  right  hand.  Nae  wonder  folks  wore  so  afraid  o' 
the  names  of  equality  an'  britherhood,  when  they  kicked  them 
ont  e'en  o'  the  kirk  o'  God.  Pious  folks  may  ca'  me  a  sinfu' 
auld  Atheist.  They  winna  gang  to  a  harmless  stage-play — 
an'  richt  they — for  fear  o'  covmtenancing  the  sin  that's  dune 
there ;  an'  I  winna  gang  to  the  kirk,  for  fear  o'  countenancing 
tlie  sin  that's  dune  there,  by  putting  down  my  hurdles  on  that 
stool  o'  antichrist,  a  haspit  pew  I" 

I  was,  therefore,  altogether  surprised  at  the  promptitude 
with  which  he  agreed  to  go  and  hear  Crossthwaite's  new-found 
prophet.  His  reasons  for  so  doing  may  be,  I  think,  gathered 
from  the  conversation  toward  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

Well,  we  went ;  and  I,  for  my  part,  was  charmed  with 
Mr.  Windrush's  eloquence.  His  style,  which  was  altogether 
Emersonian,  quite  astonished  me  by  its  alternate  bursts  of 


AITON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET.        19!) 

what  I  considered  Vrilliant  declamation,  and  of  forcible  epi- 
grammatic antithesis.  I  do  not  deny  that  I  was  a  little 
startled  by  some  of  his  doctrines,  and  suspected  that  he  had 
not  seen  much  of  St.  Giles's  cellars  or  tailors'  workshop's 
either,  when  Iip  talked  of  sin  as  "  only  a  lower  form  of  good."! 
"  Nothing,"  he  informed  us,  "  was  produced  in  nature  without 
pain  and  disturbance  ;  and  what  we  had  been  taught  to  call 
sin,  was,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  birth-throes  attendant  on 
the  progress  of  the  species.  As  for  the  devil,  Novalis,  indeed, 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  suspect  him  to  be  a  necessary  illusion. 
Novalis  was  a  mystic,  and  tainted  by  the  old  creeds.  The 
illusion  was  not  necessary — it  was  disappearing  before  the 
fast-approaching  meridian  light  of  philosophic  religion.  Like 
the  myths  of  Christianity,  it  had  grown  up  in  an  age  of  su- 
perstition, when  men,  blind  to  the  wondrous  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, believed  that  supernatural  beings,  like  the  Homeric  gods, 
actually  interfered  in  the  affairs  of  mortals.  Science  had  re- 
vealed the  irrevocability  of  the  laws  of  nature — was  man 
alone  to  be  exempt  from  them  ?  No.  The  time  would  come 
when  it  would  be  as  obsolete  an  absurdity  to  talk  of  the 
temptation  of  a  fiend,  as  it  was  now  to  talk  of  the  wehr- 
wolf,  or  the  angel  of  the  thunder-cloud.  The  metaphor  might 
remain,  doubtless,  as  a  metaphor,  in  the  domain  of  poetry, 
whose  office  was  to  realize,  in  objective  symbols,  the  subject 
ive  ideas  of  the  human  intellect;  but  philosophy,  and  the  pure 
sentiment  of  religion,  which  found  all  things,  even  God  him- 
self, in  the  recesses  of  its  own  enthusiastic  heart  must  abjure 

?uch  a  notion 

"  What  I"  he  asked  again,  "  shall  all  nature  be  a  harmoni-  i 
ous  whole,  reflecting,  in  every  drop  of  dew  which  gems  the 
footsteps  of  the  morning,  the  infinite  love  and  wisdom  of  its 
Maker,  and  man  alone  be  excluded  from  his  part  in  that  con- 
cordant choir?  Yet  such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  advocates  of 
.free-will,  and  of  sin — its  phantom-bantling.  Man  disobey  his 
Maker!  disarrange  and  break  the  golden  wheels  and  springs 
of  the  infinite  machine !  The  thouglit  were  blasphemy  ! — 
impossibility!  All  things  fulfill  their  destiny;  and  so  doesj 
man,  in  a  higher  or  lower  sphere  of  being.  Shall  I  punish 
the  robber  1  Shall  I  curse  the  profligate  ]  As  soon  destroy 
the  toad,  because  my  partial  taste  may  judge  him  ugly ;  or 
doom  to  hell,  for  his  carnivorous  appetite,  the  muscalonge  of 
my  native  lakes!  Toad  is  not  horrible  to  toad,  or  thief  to 
thief.  Philanthropists  or  statesmen  may  environ  him  with 
more  gsnial  circumstances,  and  so  enable  his  propensities  to 


•200  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

work  more  directly  for  the  good  of  society ;  but  to  punish  him 

— to  punish  nature  for  daring  to  be  nature  I — Never  I     I  may 

thank  the  Upper  Destinies  that  they  have  not  made  me  aa 

other  men  are — that  they  have  endowed  me  with  nobler  in- 

V  stincts,  a  more  delicate  conformation  than  the  thief;  but  1 

I  have  my  part  +0  play  and  he  has  his.     Why  should  we  wish 

I  to  be  other  than  the  All-wise  has  made  us  ?" 

"Fine  doctrine  that,"  grumbled  Sandy;  "gin  ye've  first 
made  up  your  mind  wi'  the  Pharisee,  that  yc  are  no  like  ither 
men." 

"  Shall  I  pray,  then?  For  what?  I  will  coax  none,  flat- 
Ler  none — not  even  the  Supreme  I  I  will  not  be  absurd  enough 
to  wish  to  change  that  order,  by  which  sun  and  stars,  saints 
and  sinners,  alike  fulfill  their  destinies.  There  is  one  comfort, 
my  friends ;  coax  and  flatter,  as  we  will,  he  will  not  hear 
us." 

"Pleasant  for  puir  deevils  like  us  I"  quoth  Mackaye. 

"  What  then  remains?  Thanks,  thanks — not  of  words,  bul 
of  actions.  Worship  is  a  life,  not  a  ceremony.  He  who  would 
honor  the  Supreme,  let  him  cheerfully  succumb  to  the  destiny 
which  the  Supreme  has  allotted,  and  like  the  shell  or  the 
flower" — ("  or  the  pick-pocket,"  added  Mackaye,  almost  audi- 
bly), "become  the  happy  puppet  of  the  universal  impulse.  He 
who  would  honor  Christ,  let  him  become  a  Christ  himself  I 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia — born,  alas !  before  his  time — a 
prophet  for  whom  as  yet  no  audience  stood  ready  in  the  am- 
])hitheatre  of  souls — 'Christ!'  he  was  Avon*t  to  say;  'I  can 
become  Christ  myself,  if  I  will.'  Become  lliou  Christ,  my 
brother  I  He  is  an  idea — the  idea  of  utter  submission — abne- 
gation of  his  own  fancied  will  before  the  supreme  necessities 
Fulfill  that  idea,  and  thou  art  he  !  Deny  thyself,  and  then 
only  wilt  thou  be  a  reality  ;  for  thou  hast  no  self  If  thou 
hadst  a  self,  thou  wouldst  but  lie  in  denying  it — and  M'ould 
The  Being  thank  thee  for  denying  what  he  had  given  thee  ? 
But  thou  hast  none  I  God  is  circumstance,  and  thou  his 
creature  I  Be  content  I  Fear  not,  strive  not,  change  not,  re- 
pent not  I  Thou  art  nothing  !  be  nothing,  and  thou  becomest 
^ .  a  part  of  all  things  I" 

A*   I       And  so  Mr.  Windrush  ended  his  discourse,  which  Cross- 
b       1  thwaite  had  been  all  the  while  busily  taking  down  in  short- 
I  hand,  lor  the  edification  of  the  readers  of  a  certain  periodical, 
\  and  also  for  those  of  this  my  Life. 

I  plead  guilty  to  having  been  entirely  carried  away  by  what 
T  heard.     There  was  so  much  which  was  true,  so  much  moie 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  1'0I:T.        .2;:1 

which  seemed  true,  so  much  which  it  would  have  been  con 
veiiient  to  beheve  true,  and  all  put  so  eloquently  and  originally 
as  I  then  considered,  that,  in  short,  I  was  in  raptures,  and  so 
was  poor  dear  Crossthwaite  ;  and  as  we  walked  home,  we 
dinned  Mr.  Windrush's  praises  one  into  each  of  Mackaye's 
ears.  The  old  man,  however,  paced  on  silent  and  meditative. 
At  last — 

"  A  hunder  sects  or  so  in  the  land  o'  Gret  Britain ;  an'  a 
hunder  or  so  single  preachers,  each  man  a  sect  of  his  ain  I  an' 
this  the  last  fashion  I  Last  indeed  I  The  moon  of  Calvin- 
isni's  far  gone  in  the  fourth  quarter,  when  it's  come  to  the 
like  o'  that.  Trulj%  the  soul-saving  business  is  a'thegither 
ia'n  to  a  low  ebb,  as  Master  Tummas  says  somewhere  I" 

"  Well,  but,"  asked  Crossthwaite,  "was  not  that  man,  at 
least,  splendid  ?" 

"An'  hoo  much  o'  thae  gran'  objectives  an'  subjectives  did 
ye  comprehcn',  then,  Johnnie,  my  man  ?" 

"Quite  enough  for  me,"  answered  John  in  a  somewhat  net- 
tled tone. 

"  An,  sae  did  I.' 

"  But  you  ought  to  hear  him  often.  You  can't  judge  of 
his  system  from  one  sermon,  in  this  way." 

"  Seestem  !  and  what's  that  like  ?" 

"  Why,  he  has  a  plan  for  uniting  all  sects  and  parties,  on 
the  one  broad  fundamental  ground  of  the  unity  of  God  as  re- 
vealed by  science — " 

"  Verra  like  uniting  o'  men  by  just  pu'ing  afi'  their  claes, 
and  telling  'em,  '  There,  ye're  a'  brithers  noo,  on  the  one  broad 
fundamental  principle  o'  want  o'  breeks.'  " 

"  Of  course,"  went  on  Crossthwaite,  without  taking  notice 
of  this  interruption,  "  he  alloAvs  full  liberty  of  conscience.  All 
he  wi.shes  for  is  the  emancipation  of  intellect.  He  will  allow 
every  one,  he  says,  to  realize  that  idea  to  himself,  by  the  rep- 
resentations which  suit  him  best." 

"  An'  so  he  has  no  objection  to  a  wee  playing  at  Papistry, 
gin  a  man  finds  it  good  to  tickle  up  his  soul?" 

"  Ay,  he  did  speak  of  that — Avhat  did  he  call  it  ?  Oh  ' 
'one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  Christian  idea  naturally  em- 
bodied itself  in  imaginative  minds  I  but  the  higher  intellects, 
ol"  course,  would  want  fewer  helps  of  that  kind.  They  w'ould 
see — '  ay,  that  was  it — '  the  pure  white  light  of  truth,  without 
requiring  those  colored  refracting  media.'  " 

"  That  wad  depend  muckle  on  whether  the  light  o'  Iruth 
chose  or  not — I'm  thinking.     But,  Joluinie,  lad — "^uide  u.s 


202  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

and  save  us  !  wliaur  got  ye  a'  these  gran'  outlandish  words 
the  nicht  ?" 

"  Haven't  I  been  taking  down  every  one  of  these  lectures 
for  the  press  ? ' ' 

"  The  press  gang  to  the  father  o't — and  you  too,  for  lending 
your  han'  in  the  matter — for  a  mair  accursed  aristocrat  I 
never  heerd,  sin'  I  first  ate  haggis.  Oh,  ye  gowk — ye  gowk  I 
Dinna  ye  see  what  be  the  upshot  o'  siccan  doctrine  ?  That 
every  puir  fellow  as  has  no  gret  brains  in  his  head  will  be  left 
to  his  superstition,  an'  his  ignorance,  to  fulfill  the  lusts  o'  his 
flesh ;  while  the  few  that  are  geniuses,  or  fancy  themselves 
sae,  are  to  ha'  the  monopoly  o'  this  private  still  o'  philosophy 
— these  carbonari,  illuminati,  vehmgericht,  Samothracian  mys- 
teries o'  bottled  moonshine.  An'  when  that  comes  to  pass, 
I'll  just  gang  back  to  my  schule  and  my  catechism,  and  begin 
again  wi'  '  who  was  born  o'  the  Virgin  Mary,  sufiered  oonder 
Pontius  Pilate  I'  Hech  I  lads,  there's  no  subjectives  and 
objectives  there,  na  beggarly,  windy  abstractions,  but  joost  a 
plain  fact,  that  God  cam'  down  to  look  for  puir  bodies,  instead 
o'  leaving  puir  bodies  to  gang  looking  for  Him.  An'  here's  a 
pretty  place  to  be  left  looking  for  Him  in — between  gin-shops 
and  gutters  I  A  pretty  gospel  for  the  publicans  an'  harlots, 
to  tell  'em  that  if  their  bairns  are  canny  enough,  they  may 
possibly  some  day  be  allowed  to  believe  that  there  is  one  God, 
and  not  twa  I  And  then,  by  way  of  practical  application — 
'  Hech  I  my  dear,  starving,  simple  brothers,  ye  manna  be  sae 
owre  conscientious,  and  gang  fashing  yourselves  anent  being 
brutes,  an'  deevils,  for  the  gude  God's  made  ye  sae,  and  He's 
verra  weel  content  to  see  ye  sae,  gin  ye  be  content  or  no." 

"  Then,  do  you  believe  in  the  old  doctrines  of  Christianity  ?" 
I  asked. 

"  Dinna  speir  what  I  believe  in.  I  canna  tell  ye.  I've 
been  seventy  years  trying  to  believe  in  God,  and  to  meet  an- 
cither  man  that  believed  in  him.  So  Pm  just  like  the  Quaker 
o'  the  town  o'  Redcross,  that  met  by  himself  every  First-day 
in  his  ain  hoose." 

"  Well,  but,"  I  asked  again,  "  is  not  complete  freedom  of 
thought  a  glorious  aim — to  emancipate  man's  noblest  part — 
tlie  intellect — from  the  trammels  of  custom  and  ignorance  V 

"  Intellect — intellect  I"  rejoined  he,  according  to  his  fashion, 
catching  one  up  at  a  word,  and  playing  on  that  in  order  to 
answer,  not  Avhat  one  said,  but  what  one's  words  led  to. 
"  I'm  sick  o'  all  Ihe  talk  anent  intellect  I  hear  noo.  An' 
■what's  the  use  o'  intellect  ?   '  Aristocracy  o'  intellect,'  they 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOKT.  203 

cry.  Curse  a'  aristocracies — intellectual  aiics,  as  weel  ua 
anes  o'  birth,  or  rank,  or  money  I  What !  will  I  ca'  a  man 
my  superior,  because  he's  cleverer  than  mysel'  1  will  I  boo 
down  to  a  bit  o'  brains,  ony  mair  than  to  a  stock  or  a  stanc? 
Let  a  man  prove  himscl'  better  than  me,  my  laddie — honest- 
er,  humbler,  kinder,  Avi'  mair  sense  o'  tlie  duty  o'  man,  an' 
the  weakness  o'  man — and  that  man  I'll  acknowledge — that  j 
man's  my  king,  my  leader,  though  he  war  as  stupid  as  Eppe 
Dalgleish,  that  could  na  count  five  on  her  fingers,  and  yet 
keepit  her  drucken  father  by  her  ain  hand's  labor,  for  twenty- 
three  yeers." 

We  could  not  agree  to  all  this,  but  we  made  a  rule  of 
never  contradicting  the  old  sage  in  one  of  his  excited  moods, 
for  fear  of  bringing  on  a  week's  silent  fit — a  state  Avhich  gen- 
erally ended  in  his  smoking  himself  into  a  bilious  melancholy, 
but  I  made  up  my  mind  to  be  henceforth  a  frequent  auditor 
of  Mr.  Windrush's  oratory. 

"An'  sac  the  dcevil's  dead  I"  said  Sandy,  half  to  himself, 
as  he  sat  crooning  and  smoking  that  night  over  the  fire. 
"  Gone  at  last,  puir  fallow  !  an'  he  sae  little  appreciated,  too  I 
Every  gowk  laying  his  ain  sins  on  Nickie's  back.  Puir 
Nickie  !  verra  like  that  much  misunderstood  politeecian,  Mr. 
John  Cade,  as  Charles  Buller  ca'd  him  in  the  Hoose  o'  Com- 
mons— an'  he  to  be  dead  at  last  I  The  warld  '11  seem  quite 
unco  without  his  auld-farrant  phizog  on  the  streets.  Aweel, 
aweel — aiblins  he's  but  shammin.' 

When  pleasant  Spring  came  on  apace, 

And  showers  began  to  fa', 
John  Barleycorn  got  up  again, 

And  sore  surprised  them  a'. 

At  ony  rate,  I'd  no  bury  him  till  he  began  smell  a  wee 
Btrong,  like.  It's  a  grewsome  thing,  is  premature  interment, 
Alton  laddie  I" 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE   PEES^. 

But  all  this  while,  my  slavery  to  Mr.  O'Flynn's  party- 
spirit  and  coarseness  was  becoming  daily  more  and  more  in- 
tolerable :  an  explosion  was  inevitable ;  and  an  explosion 
came. 

Mr.  O'Flynn  found  out  that  I  had  been  staying  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  at  a  cathedral  city  too  ;  and  it  was  quite  a  god- 
send to  him  to  find  any  one  who  knew  a  word  about  the  in- 
stitutions at  which  he  had  been  railing  weekly  for  years.  So 
nothing  would  serve  him,  but  my  writing  a  set  of  articles  on 
the  Universities,  as  a  prelude  to  one  on  the  Cathedral  Estab- 
lishments. In  vain  I  pleaded  the  shortness  of  my  stay  there, 
and  the  smallness  of  my  information. 

"  Och,  were  not  abuses  notorious?  And  couldn't  I  get 
them  up  out  of  any  Ptadical  paper — and  just  put  in  a  little 
of  my  own  observations,  and  a  dashing  personal  cut  or  two, 
to  spice  the  thing  up,  and  give  it  an  original  look  ?  and  if  I 
did  not  choose  to  write  that — why,"  with  an  enormous  oath, 
"I  should  write  nothing."  So — for  I  was  growing  weaker 
and  weaker,  and  indeed  my  hack-writing  was  breaking  down 
my  moral  sense,  as  it  does  that  of  most  of  men — I  complied  ; 
and  burning  with  vexation,  feeling  myself  almost  guilty  of  a 
breach  of  trust  toward  those  from  Avhom  I  had  received  nothing 
but  kindness,  I  scribbled  off  my  first  number  and  sent  it  to 
the  editor — to  see  it  appear  next  week,  three-parts  rewritten, 
and  every  fact  of  my  own  furnishing  twisted  and  misapplied, 
till  the  whole  thing  was  as  vulgar  and  commonplace  a  piece 
of  rant  as  ever  disgraced  the  people's  cause.  And  all  this,  in 
spite  of  a  solemn  promise,  confirmed  by  a  volley  of  oaths,  that 
I  "should  say  what  I  liked,  and  speak  my  whole  mind,  as 
one  who  had  seen  things  with  his  own  eyes  had  a  right  to 
do." 

Furious,  I  set  ofi'to  the  editor  ;  and  not  only  my  pride,  but 
what  literary  conscience  I  had  left,  was  stirred  to  the  bottom 
by  seeing  myself  made,  whether  I  would  or  not,  a  blackguard 
and  a  slanderer. 

As  it  was  ordained,  Mr.  O'Flynn  was  gone  out  for  an  Jiour 
or  two;  and,  unable  to  settle  down  to  any  work  till  I  had 
'buglit  my  battle  with  him  fairly  out,  I  wandered  onward 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.       20> 

toward  the  West-end,  staring  into  print-shop  -uindows,  and 
meditating  on  many  things. 

As  it  was  ordained,  also,  I  turned  up  Regent-street,  and 
into  Langham-place  ;  when,  at  the  door  of  All-Souls  Churcli, 
behold  a  crowd,  and  a  long  string  of  carriages  arriving,  and 
all  the  pomp  and  glory  of  a  grand  wedding. 

I  joined  the  crowd  from  mere  idleness,  and  somehow  found 
myself  in  the  first  rank,  just  as  the  bride  was  stepping  out  of 
the  carriage — it  was  Miss  Staunton  ;  and  the  old  gentleman 
who  handed  her  out  was  no  other  than  the  dean.  They 
were,  of  course,  far  too  deeply  engaged  to  recognize  insignifi- 
cant little  me,  so  that  I  could  stare  as  thoroughly  to  my 
heart's  content  as  any  of  the  butcher-boys  and  nursery-maid.s 
around  me. 

She  was  closely  vailed — but  not  too  closely  to  prevent  my 
seeing  her  magnificent  lip  and  nostril  curling  with  pride,  re- 
solve, rich  tender  passion.  Her  glorious  black-brown  hair — 
the  true  "purple  locks"'  which  Homer  so  often  talks  of — rolled 
down  beneath  her  vail  in  great  heavy  ringlets ;  and  wdth  her 
tali  and  rounded  figure,  and  step  as  firm  and  queenly  as  if  she 
were  going  to  a  throne,  she  seemed  to  me  the  very  ideal  of 
those  magnificent  Eastern  Zubeydehs  and  Nourmahals,  whom 
I  used  to  dream  of  after  reading  the  "  Arabian  Nights." 

As  they  entered  the  door-way,  almost  touching  me,  she 
looked  round,  as  if  for  some  one.  The  dean  whispered  some- 
thing in  his  gentle,  stately  way,  and  she  answered  by  one  of 
those  looks  so  intense,  and  yet  so  bright,  so  full  of  unutterable 
depths  of  meaning  and  emotion,  that,  in  spite  of  all  my  antip- 
athy, I  felt  an  admiration  akin  to  awe  thrill  through  me,  and 
aazed  after  her  so  intently,  that  Lillian — Lillian  herself — was 
at  my  side,  and  almost  passed  me  beibre  I  was  aware  of  it. 

Yes,  there  she  was,  the  Ibremost  among  a  bevy  of  fair  girls, 
"  henself  the  fairest  far,"  all  April  smiles  and  tears,  golden 
curls,  snowy  rosebuds,  and  hovering  clouds  of  lace — a  fairy 
queen  ;  but  yet — but  yet — how  shallow  that  hazel  eye,  how 
empty  of  meaning  those  delicate  featujjcs,  compared  with  the 
strength  and  intellectual  richness  of  the  face  which  had  pre- 
ceded her  I 

It  was  too  true — I  had  ne\er  remarked  it  before;  but  now 
'it  Hashed  across  me  like  lightning — and  like  lightning  vanish- 
ed ;  for  Lillian's  ej-e  caught  mine,  and  there  was  the  faintest 
spark  of  a  smile  of  recognition,  and  pleased  surprise,  and  a 
nod.  I  blushed  scarlet  with  delight;  some  servant  girl  or 
other,  who  stood  next  to  me,  had  seen  it  too — quick-eyed  that 


206  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

wcriien  are — and  was  looking  curiously  at  me.  I  turned,  I 
know  not  why,  in  my  delicious  shame,  and  plunged  through 
the  crowd  to  hide  T  knew  not  what. 

I  walked  on — poor  fool  I—  in  an  ecstasy  ;  the  v/hole  world 
was  transfigured  in  my  eyes,  and  virtue  and  wisdom  beamed 
i'rora  eveiy  face  I  passed.  The  omnibus-horses  were  racers, 
and  the  drivers — were  they  not  my  brothers  of  the  people  ? 
The  very  policemen  looked  sprightly  and  philanthropic.  I 
shook  hands  earnestly  with  the  crossing-sweeper  of  the  Regent- 
circus,  gave  him  my  last  two-pence,  and  rushed  on,  like  a  young 
David,  to  exterminate  that  Philistine  O'Flynn. 

Ah  well  I  I  was  a  great  fool,  as  others  too  have  been  ;  but 
yet,  that  little  chance-meeting  did  really  raise  me.  It  made 
me  sensible  that  I  was  made  for  better  things  than  low  abuse 
of  the  higher  classes.  It  gave  me  courage  to  speak  out,  and 
act  without  fear  of  con.sequences,  once  at  least  in  that  con- 
fused I'acing-both- ways  period  of  my  life.  O  woman  I  Avoman  I 
only  true  missionary  of  civilization  and  brotherhood,  and  gen- 
tle, forgiving  charity ;  it  is  in  thy  power,  and  perhaps  in  thine 
only,  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to 
the  captives  I  One  real  lady,  who  should  dare  to  stoop,  what 
might  she  not  do  with  us — with  our  sisters  ?     If — 

There  are  hundreds,  answers  the  reader,  who  do  stoop. 
Elizabeth  Fry  was  a  lady,  well-born,  rich,  educated,  and  she 
has  many  scholars. 

True,  my  dear  readers,  true — and  may  God  bless  her  and 
her  scholars.  Do  you  think  the  working-men  forget  them  ? 
But  look  at  St.  Giles's,  or  Spitalfields,  or  Shadwell,  and  say, 
is  not  the  harvest  plentiful,  and  the  laborei's,  alas  I  few  ?  No 
one  asserts  that  nothing  is  done  ;  the  question  is,  is  enough 
done  ?  Does  the  supply  of  mercy  meet  the  demand  of  iniserv  ^ 
Walk  into  the  next  court  and  see  ' 

I  found  Mr.  OTlynn  in  his  sanctum,  busy  with  paste  and 
Kcissors,  in  the  act  of  putting  in  a  string  of  advertisements — 
indecent  French  novels,  Atheistic  tracts,  quack  medicines, 
and  slopsellers'  pulls  ;  and  commenced  with  as  much  dignity 
as  I  could  muster, 

"  What  on  earth,  do  you  mean,  sir,  by  re-writing  my 
article?" 

"  What — (in  the  other  place) — do  you  mean  by  giving  me 
the  trouble  of  re-writing  it  ?  Me  head's  splitting  now  with 
sitting  up,  cutting  out,  and  putting  in.  Poker  o'  Moses  I  but 
ye'd  given  it  an  intirely  aristocratic  tendency.      What  did  ye 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  J'OET.  i>07 

mane"  (and  tkrec  or  four  oaths  rattled  out)  -'by  talking  about 
the  pious  iuteiitioMS  oi"  the  original  founders,  and  the  demo- 
cratic tendencies  of  monastic  establishment;;  ?" 

"  I  wrote  it  because  I  thought  it." 

"  Is  that  any  reason  ye  should  M'rlte  it  1  And  there  was 
another  bit,  too — it  made  my  hair  stand  on  end  when  1  saw 
it,  to  think  how  near  I  was  sending  the  copy  to  press  with- 
out looking  at  it — something  about  a  French  Socialist,  and 
Church  Property." 

"  Oh  !  you  mean,  I  suppose,  the  story  of  the  French  Social- 
ist, who  told  me  that  church  property  was  just  the  only  prop- 
erty in  England  which  he  would  spare,  because  it  was  the 
only  one  which  had  definite  duties  attached  to  it ;  that  the 
real  devourers  of  the  people  were  not  the  bishops,  who,  how- 
ever rich,  were  at  least  bound  to  work  in  return  for  their 
riches,  but  the  landlords  and  millionaires,  who  refuse  to 
confess  the  duties  of  property,  while  they  raved  about  its 
rights." 

"Bedad,  that's  it ;  and  pretty  doctrine,  too  !'' 

"  But  it's  true  :  it's  an  entirely  new,  and  a  very  striking 
notion,  and  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  mention  it." 

"I'hrue  !  What  the  devil  does  that  matter?  There's  a 
time  to  speak  the  truth,  and  a  time  not,  isn't  there  ?  It'll 
make  a  grand  hit,  now,  in  a  leader  upon  the  Irish  Church 
question,  to  back  the  prastes  against  the  landlords.  But  if 
I'd  let  that  in  as  it  stood,  bedad,  I'd  have  lost  three-parts  of 
my  subscribers  the  next  week.  Every  soul  of  the  Indepen- 
dents, let  alone  the  Chartists,  would  have  bid  me  good  morn- 
ing. Now  do,  like  a  good  boy,  give  us  something  more  the 
right  thing  next  time.  Draw  it  strong. — A  good  drunken 
supper-party  and  a  police  row ;  if  ye  haven't  seen  one,  get  it 
up  out  of  Peter  Priggins — or  Laver  might  do,  if  the  other 
wasn't  convenient.  That's  Dublin  to  be  sure,  but  one  uni- 
versity's just  like  another.  And  give  us  a  seduction  or  two, 
and  a  brace  of  Dons  carried  home  drunk  from  Barnwell  by 
the  Procthors." 

"  Pveally  I  never  saw  any  thing  of  the  kind ;  and  as  for 
profligacy  among  the  Dons,  1  don't  believe  it  exists.  I'll  call 
them  idle,  and  bigoted,  and  careless  of  the  morals  of  the  young 
men,  because  I  know  that  they  are  so ;  but  as  for  any  thing 
more,  I  believe  them  to  be  as  sober,  respectable  a  set  of  Phar- 
isees as  the  world  ever  saw." 

Mr.  O'Flynn  Avas  waxing  warm,  and  the  bully-vein  began 
fast  to  show  itsel/". 


208  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

*'  I  don't  care  a  curse,  sir!  My  subscribers  won't  stand  it, 
and  they  shan't  I  I  am  a  man  oi"  business,  sir,  and  a  man  of 
the  world,  sir,  and  faith  that's  more  than  you  are,  and  I  know 
what  will  sell  the  paper,  and  by  J — s  I'll  let  no  upstart  spal- 
peen dictate  to  me  I" 

"  Then  I'll  tell  you  what,  sir,"  quoth  I,  waxing  warm  in 
my  turn,  "  I  don't  know  which  are  the  greater  rogues,  you  or 
your  subscribers.  You  a  patriot !  You  are  a  humbug.  Look 
at  those  advertisements,  and  deny  it  if  you  can.  Cx-ying  out 
ibr  education,  and  helping  to  debauch  the  public  mind  with 
V^oltaire's  '  Candide,'  and  Eugene  Sue — swearing  by  Jesus, 
and  pufTuig  Atheism  and  blasphemy — yelling  at  a  quack  gov- 
ernment, quack  law,  quack  priesthoods,  and  then  dirtying  your 
fingers  with  half-crowns  for  advertising  HoUoway's  ointment, 
and  Parr's  life  pills — shrieking  about  slavery  of  lal)or  to  cap- 
ital, and  inserting  Moses  &  Son's  doggrel — ranting  about 
searching  investigations  and  the  march  of  knowledge,  and 
concealing  every  fact  which  can  not  be  made  to  pander  to  the 
passions  of  your  dupes — extolling  the  freedom  of  the  press,  and 
showing  yourself  in  your  own  office  a  tyi'ant  and  a  censor  of 
the  press.  You  a  patriot  I  You  the  people's  friend  I  You 
are  doing  every  thing  in  your  power  to  blacken  the  people's 
cause  in  the  eyes  of  their  enemies.  You  are  simply  a  hum- 
bug, a  hypocrite,  and  a  scoundrel ;  and  so  I  bid  you  good 
morning." 

Mr.  O'Flynn  had  stood,  during  this  harrangue,  speechless 
with  passion,  those  loose  lips  of  his  wreathing  like  a  pair  of 
earth-M'orms.  It  was  only  when  I  stopped  that  he  regained 
his  breath,  and  with  a  volley  of  incoherent  oaths,  caught  up 
his  chair  and  hurled  it  at  ray  head.  Luckily,  I  had  seen 
enough  of  his  temper  already,  to  keep  my  hand  on  the  lock  ol 
the  door  for  the  last  five  minutes.  I  darted  out  of  tJie  room 
quicker  than  1  ever  did  out  of  one  before  or  since.  The  chair 
took  efl'ect  on  the  luckless  door ;  and  as  I  threw  a  flying 
glance  behind  me,  I  saw  one  leg  sticking  thi'ough  the  middle 
pannel,  in  a  way  that  augured  ill  for  my  skull,  had  it  been  in 
the  way  of  Mr.  O'Flynn's  fury. 

I  ran  home  to  Mackaye  in  a  state  of  intense  self-glorifica- 
tion, and  told  him  the  whole  story.  He  chuckled,  he  crowed, 
he  hugged  me  to  his  bosom. 

'*  Leezc  me  o'  ye  I  but  I  kenned  ye  were  o'  the  true  Norse 
blude  after  a'  I 

'  For  a'  ll  at,  an'  a  tliat, 
A  man's  a  man  lor  a'  that.' 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  DOa 

Oh,  but  I  hae  expcclcit  ii  this  month  an'  inair!  Oh,  Init  I 
prophesied  it,  Johnnie  I" 

"Then,  why  in  Heaven's  name  did  you  inlroduee  me  tu 
such  a  scoundrel  ?" 

"  I  sent  ye  to  schule,  lad,  1  sent  ye  lo  schule.  Ye  wad  na 
be  ruled  by  me.  Ye  tuk  me  for  a  puir  doited  auld  misan- 
thrope ;  an'  I  thocht  to  gie  ye  the  meat  ye  lasted  after,  an' 
fill  ye  \vi'  the  fruit  o'  your  ain  desires.  An'  noo  that  ye've 
gane  doon  into  the  fire  o'  temptation,  an'  conquered,  here's 
your  reward  standin'  ready.  Special  prawvidences  I — wha 
can  doot  them  ?  I  ha'  had  mony — miracles  I  might  ca' 
them,  to  see  how  they  cam'  just  when  I  was  gaun  daft  v/i' 
despair." 

And  then  he  told  me  that  the  editor  of  a  popular  journal, 
of  the  Howitt  and  Eliza  Cook  school,  had  called  on  me  that 
morning,  and  promised  me  work  enough,  and  pay  enough,  to 
meet  all  present  difliculties. 

I  did  indeed  accept  the  curious  coincidence,  if  not  as  a 
reward  for  an  act  of  straightfi)rwardnes3,  in  which  T  saw  no 
merit,  at  least,  as  proof  that  the  up])er  powers  had  not  alto- 
gether forgotten  me.  I  found  both  the  editor  and  his  periodi- 
cal, as  I  should  have  wished  them,  temperate  and  sunny — 
somewhat  clap-trap  and  sentimental,  perhaps,  and  afraid  of 
spe;iking  out,  as  all  jjarties  are,  but  still  \villing  to  allow  my 
faiiey  free  range  in  light  fictions,  descriptions  of  foreign  coun- 
tries, scraps  of  showy  rose-pink  moralit}%  and  such  like ;  Avhich, 
though  they  had  no  more  power  against  the  raging  mass  of 
crime,  misery,  and  discontent,  around,  than  a  peacock's  feather 
against  a  three-decker,  still  were  all  genial,  graceful,  kindly, 
humanizing,  and  soothed  my  discontented  and  impatient  hearl 
in  the  work  of  composition. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  TOWNMAN'S  SERMON  TO  THE  GOWNSMAN. 

OxE  moniing  in  February  a  few  days  after  this  explosion,  I 
was  on  the  point  of  starting  to  go  to  the  dean's  house  about 
that  weary  list  of  subscribers,  which  seemed  destined  never  to 
be  filled  up,  when  my  cousin  George  burst  in  upon  me.  He 
was  in  the  highest  good  spirits  at  having  just  taken  a  double 
first-class  at  Cambridge  ;  and  after  my  congratulations,  sin- 
cere and  hearty  enough,  were  over,  he  offered  to  accompany 
me  to  that  reverend  gentleman's  house. 

He  said,  in  an  oli-hand  way,  that  he  had  no  particular 
business  there,  but  he  thought  it  just  as  well  to  call  on  the 
dean  and  mention  his  success,  in  case  the  old  fellow  should 
not  have  heard  of  it. 

"For  you  see,"  he  said,  "  I'm  a  sort  of  2^>'otcge,  both  on  my 
own  account  and  on  Lord  Lynedale's — Ellerton,  he  is  now — 
you  know  he's  just  married  to  the  dean's  niece.  Miss  Staunton 
— and  EUerton's  a  capital  fellow — promised  me  a  living  as 
soon  as  I'm  in  priest's  orders.  So  my  cue  is  now,"  he  went 
on,  as  we  walked  down  the  Strand  together,  "  to  get  ordained 
as  fast  as  ever  I  can." 

"  But,"  I  asked,  "  have  you  read  much  for  ordination,  or 
seen  much  of  what  a  clergyman's  work  should  be?" 

"  Oh  !  as  for  that — you  know  it  isn't  one  out  of  ten  who's 
ever  entered  a  school,  or  a  cottage  even,  except  to  light  his 
cigar,  before  he  goes  into  the  church  :  and  as  for  the  examina- 
tion, that's  all  humbug  ;  any  man  may  cram  it  all  up  in  a 
month — and  thanks  to  King's  College,  I  knew  all  I  wanted 
to  know  before  I  went  to  Cambridge.  And  I  shall  be  three- 
and-twenty  by  Trinity  Sunday,  and  then  in  I  go,  neck  or 
nothing.  Only  the  confounded  bore  is,  that  this  Bishop  of 
London  won't  give  one  a  title — won't  let  any  man  into  his 
diocese,  who  has  not  been  ordained  two  years ;  and  so  I  shall 
be  shoved  down  into  some  poking  little  country-curacy,  with- 
out a  chance  of  making  play  before  the  world,  or  getting 
myself  known  at  all.     Horrid  bore  !   isn't  it?" 

"I  think,"  I  said,  "considering  what  London  is  just  now 
Ihe  bishop's  regulation  seems  to  be  one  of  the  best  specimens 
of  episcopal  Avisdom  that  I've  heard  of  for  some  time." 

"  Great  bore  for  me,  though,  all  the  same  ;  for  I  must  make 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  211 

a  name,  I  can  tell  you,  if  I  intend  to  get  on.  A  person  must 
work  like  a  horse  nowadays,  to  succeed  at  all ;  and  Lyne- 
dale's  a  desperately  particular  fellow,  with  all  sorts  of  outre 
notions  about  people's  duties,  and  vocations,  and  heaven  knows 
what." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "my  dear  cousin,  and  have  you  no  high 
notions  of  a  clergyman's  vocation  ?  because  we — I  mean  the 
working-men — have.  It's  just  their  high  idea  of  what  a 
clergyman  should  be,  which  makes  them  so  furious  at  clergy- 
men for  being  what  they  are." 

"  It's  a  queer  way  of  shoAving  their  respect  to  the  priest- 
hood," he  answered,  "  to  do  all  they  can  to  exterminate  it." 

"  I  dare  say  they  are  liable,  like  other  men,  to  confound  the 
thing  with  its  abuses  ;  but  if  they  hadn't  some  dim  notion 
that  the  thing  might  be  made  a  good  thing  in  itself,  you  may 
depend  upon  it  they  would  not  rave  against  those  abuses  so 
fiercely."  (The  reader  may  see  that  I  had  not  forgotten  my 
conversation  with  Miss  Staunton.)  "And,"  thought  I  to 
myself,  "  is  it  not  you,  and  such  as  you,  who  do  so  incorporate 
the  abuses  into  the  system,  that  one  really  can  not  tell  which 
is  which,  and  longs  to  shove  the  whole  thing  aside  as  rotten 
to  the  core,  and  make  a  trial  of  something  new  ?" 

"  Well,  but,"  I  said,  again  returning  to  th»  charge,  for  the 
subject  was  altogether  curious  and  intei'esting  to  me,  "  do  you 
really  believe  the  doctrines  of  the  Prayer-book,  George  ?" 

"  Believe  them  !"  he  answered,  in  a  tone  of  astonishment, 
"  why  not  ?  I  was  brought  up  a  Churchman,  whatever  my 
parents  were ;  I  was  always  intended  for  the  ministry.  I'd 
sign  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  now,  against  any  man  in  the 
three  kingdoms  ;  and  as  for  all  the  proofs  out  of  Scripture  and 
Church  History,  I've  known  them  ever  since  I  was  sixteen 
— I'll  get  them  all  up  again  in  a  week  as  fresh  as  ever." 

"  But,"  I  rejoined,  astonislied  in  my  turn  at  my  cousin's 
notion  of  what  belief  M'as,  "  have  you  any  personal  faith  ?  you 
know  what  I  mean — I  hate  using  cant  words — but  inward 
experience  of  the  truth  of  all  these  great  ideas,  which,  true  or 
false,  'you  will  have  to  preach  and  teach  ?  Would  you  live 
by  them,  die  for  them,  as  a  patriot  Avould  for  his  country, 
now  ?" 

"  ]My  dear  fellow,  I  dont  know  any  thing  about  all  those 
Methodistieal,  mystical,  Calvinistical  inward  experiences, 
and  all  that.  I'm  a  Churchman,  remember,  and  a  High 
Churchman,  too ;  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  is,  that 
children  are  regenerated  in  holy  bapti.^m  ;   and  there's  not  X\w 


212  ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

least  douLt,  from  the  o.uthority  both  of  Scripture  and  the 
fathers,  that  that's  the — " 

"For  heaven's  sake,"  I  said,  "no  polemical  discussions! 
Whether  you're  right  or  wronjj,  that's  not  AA'hat  I'm  talking 
about.  What  I  want  to  know  is  this:  You  are  going  to 
teach  people  about  God  and.  Jesus  Christ.  Do  you  delight 
in  God  ?  Do  yon  love  Jesus  Christ '.'  Never  mind  Avhat  1 
do,  or  think,  or  believe.      What  do  you  do,  George?" 

"Well,  my  dear  fellow,  if  you  take  things  in  that  way,  you 
know,  of  course — "  and  he  dropped  his  voice  into  that  pecu- 
liar tone,  by  which  all  sects  seem  to  think  they  show  their 
reverence  ;  Avhile  to  me,  as  to  most  other  Avorking-men,  it 
ne\-er  seemed  any  thing  but  a  symbol  of  the  separation  and 
discrepancy  between  their  daily  thoughts  and  their  religious 
ones — "  of  course,  Ave  don't  any  of  us  think  of  these  things 
half  enough,  and  I'm  sure  I  wish  I  could  be  more  earnest 
than  I  am  ;  but  I  can  only  hope  it  Avill  come  in  time.  The 
Church  holds  that  there's  a  grace  giA'en  in  ordination  ;  and 
really — really,  I  do  hope  and  Avish  to  do  my  duty — indeed, 
one  can't  help  doing  it ;  one  is  so  pushed  on  by  the  immense 
competition  for  preferment  ;  an  idle  parson  hasn't  a  chance 
noAAadays." 

"But,"  Iask«d  again,  half  laughing,  halfdi.-gusted,  "do  you 
knoAv  what  your  duty  is  ?" 

"  Bless  you,  my  good  felloAV,  a  man  can't  go  Avrong  there. 
Carry  out  the  Church-system;  that's  the  thing — all  laid 
doAvn  by  rule  and  method.  A  man  has  but  to  Avork  out  that 
— and  it's  the  only  one  for  the  loAA'er  classes,  I'm  conA'inced." 

"  Strange,"  I  said,  "  that  they  haA^e  from  the  first  been  so 
little  of  that  opinion,  that  cA^ery  attempt  to  enforce  it,  for  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  has  ended  either  in  persecution  or 
reA'olution." 

"  Ah  I  that  was  all  those  vile  Puritans'  fault.  Thej 
u-ould'nt  giv^e  the  Church  a  chance  of  shoAving  her  poAA'ers." 

"  What  I  not  Avhen  she  had  it  all  her  oAvn  Avay,  during  the 
.whole  eighteenth  century  ?" 

I  "  Ah  I  but  things  are  very  different  noAV.  The  clergy  are 
awakened  noAv  to  the  real  beauty  of  the  Catholic  machinery  ; 
and  you  have  no  notion  hoAV  much  is  doing  in  church-building, 
and  schools,  and  societies  of  every  sort  and  kind.  It  is  quite 
incredible  Avhat  is  being  done  noAv  for  the  loAA'er  oi-ders  by  the 
Church." 

"  I  belicA'c,"  I  said,  "  that  the  clergy  are  exceedinglv  im- 
prove.] ;  and  I  believe,  too,  that  the  men  to  Avhom  they  oaa'c 


ALTON  LOCKE.   TAILOR  AND  POET.  013 

all  their  improvement,  arc  the  Wesleys,  and  Whitfields — in 
short,  the  very  men  whom  they  drove  one  by  one  out  of  the 
Church,  from  persecution  or  disgust.  And  I  do  think  it 
strange,  that  if  so  much  is  doing  for  the  lower  classes,  the 
working-men  who  form  the  mass  of  the  lower  classes,  are  just 
those  who  scarcely  feel  the  efiects  of  it  ;  while  the  churches 
seem  to  be  filled  with  children,  and  rich  and  respectable,  to 
the  almost  entire  exclusion  of  the  adult  lower  classes.  A 
strange  religion  this  I"  I  went  on,  "and,  to  judge  by  its 
effects,  a  very  different  one  from  that  preached  in  Judea  eight- 
een hundred  years  ago,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  Gospel  story." 

"  What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?  Is  not  the  Church  of 
England  the  very  purest  form  of  Apostolic  Christianity?" 

"  It  may  be — and  so  may  the  other  sects.  But,  somehow, 
in  Judea,  it  was  the  publicans  and  harlots  who  pressed  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  it  was  the  common  people  who 
lioard  Christ  gladly.  Christianity,  then,  was  a  movement  in 
the  hearts  of  the  lower  order.  But  now,  my  dear  fellow,  you 
vich,  who  used  to  be  told  in  St.  James's  time,  to  weep  and 
howl,  have  turned  the  tables  upon  us  poor.  It  is  yoic  who 
are  talking,  all  day  long,  of  converting  us.  Look  at  any 
place  of  worship  you  like,  orthodox  and  heretical.  Who  fill 
the  pews  ?  the  outcast  and  the  reprobate  ]  No  I  the  Phari- 
sees and  the  covetous,  M-ho  used  to  deride  Christ,  fill  His 
churches,  and  say  still  '  This  people,  these  masses,  who  know 
not  the  Gospel,  are  accursed.'  And  the  universal  feeling,  as 
far  as  I  can  judge,  seems  to  be,  not  'how  hardly  shall  they 
Avho  have,'  but  how  hardly  shall  they  who  have  not  'riches 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven!'  " 

"  Upon  my  word,"  said  he,  laughing,  "  I  did  not  give  you 
credit  for  so  much  eloquence  :  you  seem  to  have  studied  the 
Bible  to  some  purpose,  too.  I  didn't  think  that  so  much 
Radicalism  could  be  squeezed  out  of  a  few  texts  of  Scripture. 
It's  quite  a  new  light  to  me.  I'll  just  mark  that  card,  and 
play  it  when  I  get  a  convenient  opportunity.  It  may  be  a 
winning  one  in  these  democratic  times." 

And  he  did  play  it,  as  I  heard  hereafter  ;  but  at  present  he 
seemed  to  think,  that  the  less  that  was  said  further  on  clerical 
subjects  the  better,  and  commenced  quizzing  the  people  whom 
we  passed,  humorously  and  neatly  enough  ;  Avhile  I  walked 
on  in  silence,  and  thought  of  Mr.  Bye-Ends,  in  the  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress."  And  yet  I  believe  the  man  was  really  in 
earnest.  He  was  really  desirous  to  do  what  was  right,  as  far 
as  h*-  knew  it ;  aiid  all  the  more  desirous,  because  he  saw,  in 


214  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

the  present  state  of  society,  what  was  right  would  pay  him 
God  shall  judge  him,  not  I.  Who  can  unravel  the  confusion 
of  mingled  selfishness  and  devotion  that  exists  even  in  his  own 
heart,  much  less  in  that  of  another  ? 

The  dean  was  not  at  home  that  day,  having  left  town  on 
business.  George  nodded  familiarly  to  the  footman  who 
opened  the  door. 

"  You'll  mind  and  send  me  word  the  moment  your  master 
comes  home — mind,  now  I" 

The  fellow  promised  obedience,  and  we  walked  away. 

"  You  seem  to  be  very  intimate  here,"  said  I,  "  with  all 
parties  V 

"  Oh  I  footmen  are  useful  animals — a  half  sovereign  now 
and  then  is  not  altogether  thrown  away  upon  them.  But  as 
for  the  higher  powers,  it  is  very  easy  to  make  one's  self  at 
home  in  the  dean's  study,  but  not  so  much  so  to  get  a  footing 
in  the  drawing-room  above.  I  suspect  he  keeps  a  precious 
sharp  eye  upon  the  fair  Miss  Lillian."' 

"  But,"  I  asked,  as  a  jealous  pang  shot  through  my  heart, 
"how  did  you  contrive  to  get  this  same  footing  at  alii 
When  I  met  you  at  Cambridge,  you  seemed  already  well 
acquainted  with  these  people." 

"  How  ? — how  does  a  hound  get  a  footing  on  a  cold  scent  ? 
By  working  and  casting  about  and  about,  and  drawing  on  it 
inch  by  inch,  as  I  drew  on  them  for  years,  my  boy  ;  and  cold 
enough  the  scent  was.  You  recollect  that  day  at  the  Dul- 
wich  Gallery  1  I  tried  to  see  the  arms  on  the  carriage,  but 
there  were  none  ;  so  that  cock  wouldn't  fight." 

"  The  arms!  I  should  never  have  thought  of  such  a  plan." 

"  Dare  say  you  wouldn't.  Then  I  harked  back  to  the  door- 
keeper, v/hile  you  were  St.  Sebastianizing.  He  didn't  know 
their  names,  or  didn't  choose  to  show  me  their  ticket,  on 
which  it  ought  to  have  been  ;  so  I  went  to  one  of  the  fellows 
whom  I  knew,  and  got  him  to  find  out.  There  comes  out  the 
value  of  money — for  money  makes  acquaintances.  Well,  I 
found  who  they  were.  Then  I  saw  no  chance  of  getting  at 
them.  But  for  the  rest  of  that  year,  at  Trinity,  I  beat  every 
bush  in  the  University,  to  fmd  some  one  who  knew  them  ; 
B.nd  as  fortune  favors  the  brave,  at  last  I  hit  off  this  Lord 
Lynedale  ;  and  he,  of  course,  was  the  ace  of  trumps — a  fine 
catch  in  himself,  and  a  double  catch,  because  he  was  going  to 
marry  the  cousin.  So  I  made  a  dead  set  at  him  ;  and  tight 
work  I  had  to  nab  him,  I  can  tell  you,  for  he  was  three  or 
four  years  older  thac  1,  and  had  traveled  a  good  deal  and 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.       '215 

teen  life.  But  every  man  has  his  weak  side  ;  and  I  found  his 
was  a  sort  of  a  Iligh-Church  Radicalism,  and  that  suited  me 
well  enough,  for  I  was  always  a  deuce  of  a  radical  myself; 
so  I  stuck  to  him  like  a  leech,  and  stood  all  his  temper,  and 
his  pride,  and  those  unpractical,  windy  visions  of  his,  that 
made  a  common-sense  fellow  like  me  sick  to  listen  to  ;  hut  I 
stood  it,  and  here  I  am." 

"  And  what  on  earth  induced  you  to  stoop  to  all  this — " 
meanness  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying.  "  Surely  you  are  in 
no  want  of  money — your  father  could  huy  you  a  good  living 
to-morrow." 

"  And  he  will,  but  not  the  one  I  want ;  and  he  could  not 
buy  me  reputation,  power,  rank,  do  you  see,  Alton,  my  gen-_^. 
ius  ?  And  what's  more  he  couldn't  buy  me  a  certain  little 
tit-bit,  a  jewel,  worth  a  Jew's-eye  and  a  half,  Alton,  that 
I  set  my  heart  on  from  the  first  moment  I  set  my  eye 
on  it." 

My  heart  beat  fast  and  fici'cc,  but  he  ran  on, 

"Do  you  think  I'd  have  eaten  all  this  dirt,  if  it  hadn't  lain 
m  my  way  to  her  1  Eat  dirt  I  I'd  drink  blood,  Alton — 
though  I  don't  often  deal  in  strong  words — if  it  lay  in  that 
road.  I  never  set  my  heart  on  the  thing  yet,  that  I  didn't 
get  it  at  last  by  fair  means  or  foul — and  I'll  get  her  I  I  don't 
care  for  her  money,  though  that's  a  pretty  plumb. — Upon  my 
life,  I  don't.  I  worship  her,  limbs  and  eyes. — 1  worship  the 
very  ground  she  treads  on.  She's  a  duck  and  a  darling,"  said 
he,  smacking  his  lips  like  an  Ogre  over  his  prey,  "  and  I'll 
have  her  before  I've  done,  so  help  me — " 

"  Whom  do  you  mean?"  I  stammered  out.      | 

"Lillian!  you  blind  beetle  !"  i 

I  dropped  his  arm — "  Never,  as  I  live  !" 

He  started  back,  and  burst  into  a  harse-laugh. 

"  Hullo  !  my  eye  and  Betty  Martin  !  You  don't  mean  to 
say  that  I  have  the  honor  of  finding  a  rival  in  my  talented 
cousin  V 

I  made  no  answer. 

"  Come,  come,  my  dear  fellow,  this  is  too  ridiculous.  You 
and  I  are  very  good  friends,  and  we  may  help  each  other,  if  we 
choose,  like  kith  and  kin  in  this  here  wale.  So  if  you're  fool 
enough  to  quarrel  with  me,  I  warn  you  I'm  not  fool  enough 
to  return  the  compliment.  Only"  (lowering  his  voice),  "just 
bear  one  little  thing  in  mind — that  I  am,  unfortunately,  of  a 
Eomewhat  determined  humor ;  and  if  folks  will  get  in  my 
Way,  why  it's  not  my  fault  if  I  drive  over  thnn.     You  under- 


216  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

eland  1     Well,  if  you  intend  to  be  sulky,  I  don't.     So  good 
morning,  till  you  fell  yourself  better." 

And  he  turned  gayly  down  a  side-street,  and  disappeared, 
,  looking  taller,  handsomer,  manfuller  than  ever. 

I  returned  home  miserable ;  I  now  saw  in  my  cousin,  noi 
merely  a  rival,  but  a  tyrant :  and  I  began  to  hate  him  with 
that  bitterness  which  fear  alone  can  inspire.  The  eleven 
pounds  still  remained  unpaid.  Between  three  and  four  pounds 
was  the  utmost  which  I  had  been  able  to  hoard  up  that 
autumn,  by  dint  of  scribbling  and  stintinjr ;  there  was  no 
chance  of  profit  from  my  book  for  months  to  come — if  indeed 
it  ever  got  published,  which  I  hardly  dared  believe  it  would  ; 
and  I  knew  him  too  well  to  doubt  that  neither  pity  nor  deli- 
cacy would  restrain  him  from  using  his  power  over  me,  if  I 
dared  even  to  seem  an  obstacle  in  his  way. 

I  tried  to  write,  but  could  not.  I  found  it  impossible  to 
direct  my  thoughts,  even  to  sit  still;  a  vague  spectre  of  terror 
and  degradation  crushed  me.  Day  after  day  I  sat  over  the 
fire,  and  jumped  up  and  went  into  the  shop  to  find  some- 
thing which  I  did  not  want,  and  peep  listlessly  into  a  dozen 
books,  one  after  the  other,  and  then  wandered  back  again  to 
the  fireside,  to  sit  mooning  and  moping,  staring  at  that  horri- 
ble incubus  of  debt — a  devil  which  may  give  mad  strength  to 
the  strong,  but  only  paralyzes  the  weak.  And  I  was  weak, 
as  every  poet  is  more  qr  less.  There  was  in  me,  as  I  have 
somewhere  read  that  there  is  in  all  poets,  that  feminine  vein 
— a  receptive  as  well  as  a  creative  facul'y — which  kept  up 
in  me  a  continual  thirst  after  beauty,  rest,  enjoyment.  And 
here  was  circumstance  after  circumstance  goading  me  on- 
ward, as  the  gadfly  did  To,  to  continual  wanderings,  never 
ceasing  exertions  ;  every  hour  calling  on  me  to  do,  while  1 
"was  only  longing  to  be — to  sit  and  observe,  and  fancy,  and 
build  freely  at  my  own  will.  And  then — as  if  this  necessity 
of  perpetual  petty  exertion  was  not  in  itself  sufficient  torment 
— to  have  that  accursed  debt — that  knowledge  that  I  was  in 
a  rival's  power,  rising  up  like  a  black  wall  before  me,  to  crip- 
ple, and  render  hopeless,  for  aught  I  knew,  the  very  exertions 
to  which  it  compelled  me  I  I  hated  the  bustle — the  crowds  ; 
the  ceaseless  roar  of  the  street  outside  maddened  me.  I  long- 
L'd  in  vain  fur  peace — for  one  day's  freedom — to  be  one  hour 
a  shepherd-boy,  and  lie  looking  up  at  the  blue  sky,  without 
a  thought  beyond  the  rushes  I  was  plaiting  I      "Oh,  that  I 

J  had  wings  as  i  dove  I — then  would  I  flee  away,  and  he  at 

\rcst  :" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  217 

And  then,  more  than  once,  or  twice  either,  the  thought  of 
euicide  crossed  me  ;  and  I  turned  it  over,  and  looked  at  it,  and 
dallied  with  it,  as  a  last  chance  in  reserve.  And  then  tho 
thought  of  Lillian  came,  and  drove  away  the  fiend.  And 
then  the  thought  of  my  cousin  came,  and  paralyzed  mo 
again  ;  for  it  told  me  that  one  hope  was  impossihle.  And 
then  some  fre.sh  instance  of  misery  or  oppression  forced  itself 
upon  me,  and  made  me  feel  the  awful  sacredness  of  my  call- 
ing, as  a  champion  of  the  poor,  and  the  hase  cowardice  oi' 
deserting  them  for  any  selfish  love  of  rest.  And  then  I  rec- 
ollected how  I  had  betrayed  my  suflering  brothers.  IIow, 
for  the  sake  cf  vanity  and  patronage,  I  had  consented  to  hide 
the  truth  about  their  rights — their  wrongs.  And  so  on, 
through  weary  weeks  of  moping  melancholy — "  a  double- 
minded  man,  unstable  in  all  his  ways  I" 

At  last,  Mackaye,  who,  as  I  found  afterward,  had  been 
watching  all  along  my  altered  mood,  contrived  to  worm  my 
secret  out  of  me.  I  had  dreaded,  that  whole  autumn,  having 
to  tell  him  the  truth,  because  I  knew  that  his  first  impulse 
would  be  to  pay  the  money  instantly  out  of  his  own  pocket ;  and 
my  pride,  as  well  as  my  sense  of  justice,  revolted  at  that,  and 
sealed  my  lips.  But  now  this  fresh  discovery — the  knowledge  \ 
that  it  was  not  only  in  my  cousin's  power  to  crush  me,  but 
also  his  interest  to  do  so — had  utterly  unmanned  me  ;  and, 
after  a  little  innocent  and  fruitless  prevarication,  out  came  the 
truth,  with  tears  of  bitter  shame. 

The  old  man  pursed  up  his  lips,  and,  without  answering 
me,  opened  his  table  drawer,  and  commenced  fumbling  among 
accounts  and  papers.  , 

"  No  I  no  !  no  !   best,  noblest  of  friends  I  1  will  not  burden  ! 
you  with  the  fruits  of  my  own  vanity  and  extravagance.      I 
will  starve,  go  to  jail,  sooner  than  take  your  money.     If  you 
ofier  it  me,  I  will  leave  the  house,  bag  and  baggage,  this  ' 
moment."     And  I  rose  to  put  my  threat  into  execution. 

"  1  havena  at  present  ony  sic  intention,"  answered  he,  de- 
liberately ;  seeing  that  there's  na  necessity  for  paying  debits 
twice  ewer,  when  ye  ha'  the  stampt  receipt  for  them."      And 
he  put  into  my  hands,  to  my  astonishment  and  rapture,  a  re-  1 
ceipt  in  full  lor  the  money,  signed  by  my  cousin.  / 

Not  daring  to  believe  my  own  eyes,  I  turned  it  over  and 
over,  looked  at  it,  looked  at  him — there  was  nothing  but  clear, 
smiling  assurance  in  his  beloved  old  face,  as  he  twinkled,  and 
winked,  and  chuckled,  and  pulled  olf  his  spectacles,  and  wiped 
them,  and  put  Ibern  on  upside-down  ;  and  then  relieved  him- 

K 


218  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

sell'  by  rushing  at  his  pipe,  and  cramming  it  fiercely  with  l« 
bacco  till  he  burst  the  bowl. 

Yes,  it  was  no  dream  ! — the  money  was  paid,  and  I  wat 
free !  The  sudden  relief  was  as  intolerable  as  the  lor.g 
burden  had  been  ;  and,  like  a  prisoner  suddenly  loosed  from 
off  the  rack,  my  whole  spirit  seemed  to  collapse,  and  I  sunk 
with  my  head  upon  the  table,  too  faint  even  for  gratitude. 

Eut  who  was  my  benefactor?  Mackaye  vouchsafed  no 
janswer,  hut  that  I  "  suid  ken  better  than  he."  But  when  he 
f found  that  I  was  really  utterly  at  a  loss  to  whom  to  attribute 
'the  mercy,  he  assured  mo,  by  way  of  comfort,  that  he  was 
! just  as  ignorant  as  myself;  and  at  last,  piecemeal,  in  his  cir- 
cumlocutory and  cautious  Scotch  method,  informed  me,  that 
some  six  weeks  back  he  had  received  an  anonymous  letter, 
"  a'thegither  o'  a  Belgravian  cast  o'  phizog,"  containing  a 
bank-note  for  twenty  pounds,  and  setting  forth  the  writer's 
suspicions  that  I  owed  my  cousin  money,  and  their  desire  that 
3Ir.  Mackaye  "o'  whose  uprightness  an'  generosity  they  were 
pleased  to  confess  themselves  no  that  ignorant,"  should  write 
to  George,  ascertain  the  sum,  and  pay  it  without  my  knowl- 
edge, handing  over  the  balance,  if  any,  to  me,  when  he 
thought  fit — "  Sae  there's  the  remnant — aucht  pounds,  sax 
shillings,  an'  saxpence  ;  tippence  being  deduckit  for  expense 
o'  twa  letters,  anent  the  same  transaction." 

"But  what  sort  of  hand- writing  was  it  I"  asked  I,  almost 
disregarding  the  welcome  coin. 

"  Ou,  then — aiblins  a  man's,  aiblins  a  maid's.  He  was  na 
chirographosophic  himsel' — an'  he  had  na  curiosity  anent  ony 
sic  passages  o'  aristocratic  romance." 

"But  what  was  the  post-mark  of  the  letter?" 

"  Why  for  suld  I  ha'  speired  ?  Gin  the  writers  had  been 
minded  to  be  beknown,  they'd  ha'  sign't  their  names  upon 
the  document.  An'  gin  they  didna  sae  intend,  wad  it  be 
coorteous  o'  me  to  gang  speiring  an'  peering  ower  covers  an' 
seals  ?" 

"  But  where  is  the  cover  ?' 

"  Ou,  then,"  he  went  on,  with  the  same  provoking  coolness, 
"  white  paper's  o'  geyan  use,  in  various  operations  o'  the 
domestic  economy.  Sae  I  just  tare  it  up — aiblins  for  pipe- 
lights — I  canna  mind  at  this  time." 

"And  why — "  asked  I,  more  vexed  and  disappointed  than 
I  Uked  to  confess — "  why  did  you  not  tell  me  belbre  ?" 

"  How  would  I  ken  that  you  had  need  o't?     An'  verily,  J 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OF.T.  219 

thocht  it  no  that  bad  a  lesson  for  ye,  1o  let  the  experiment  a 
towmond  mair  on  the  precious  balms  that  break  the  head — 
whereby  I  opine  the  psalmist  was  minded  to  denote  the 
delights  o'  spending  borroAved  siller." 

There  was  nothing  more  to  be  extracted  from  him ;  so  I 
was  fain  to  set  to  work  again  (a  pleasant  compulsion  truly) 
with  a  irce  heart,  eight  pounds  in  my  pocket,  and  a  brainful 
of  conjectures.  Was  it  the  dean  1  Lord  Lynedale  ?  or  was 
it — could  it  be — Lillian  herself?  That  thought  was  so  deli- 
cious, that  I  made  up  my  mind,  as  I  had  free  choice  among 
half-a-dozen  equally  improbable  fancies,  to  determine  that  the 
most  pleasant  should  be  the  true  one  ;  and  I  hoarded  the 
money,  which  I  shrunk  from  spending  as  much  as  I  should 
from  selling  her  minature  or  a  lock  of  her  beloved  golden  hair. 
They  were  a  gift  from  her — a  pledge — the  first  iruits  of — I 
dared  not  confess  to  myself  what. 

Whereat  the  reader  will  smile,  and  say,  not  without  reason, 
that  I  was  fast  fitting  myself  for  Bedlam ;  if  indeed,  I  had 
not  proved  my  fitness  for  it  already,  by  paying  the  tailors' 
debts,  instead  of  my  own,  with  the  ten  pounds  which  Farmer 
Porter  had  given  me.  I  arn  not  sure  that  he  would  not  bt 
correct,  but  so  I  did,  and  so  I  sufiered. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

A  TRUE  NOBLEMAN. 

At  last  my  list  of  subscribers  was  completed,  and  my  poem^ 
actually  in  the  press.  Oh  I  the  childish  joy  with  which  I 
fondled  my  first  set  of  proofs  I  And  how  much  finer  the 
words  looked  in  print  than  they  ever  did  in  manuscript  I — 
One  took  in  the  idea  of  a  whole  page  so  charmingly  at  a 
glance,  instead  of  having  to  feel  one's  way  through  line  after 
line,  and  sentence  after  sentence.  There  was  only  one  draw- 
back to  my  happiness — Mackaye  did  not  seem  to  sympathize 
with  it.  He  had  never  grumbled  at  what  I  considered, 
and  still  do  consider,  my  cardinal  oflense,  the  omission  of 
the  strong  political  passages ;  he  seemed,  on  the  contrary, 
ui  his  inexplicable  waywardness,  to  be  rather  pleased  at  it 
than  otherwise.  It  was  my  publishing  at  all  at  which  he 
growled. 

"  Ech,"  he  said,  "  owre  young  to  marry,  is  owre  young  to 
write;  but  it's  the  way  o'  these  puir  distractit  times.  .'  Nae 
chick  can  find  a  gi'ain  o'  corn,  but  oot  he  rins  cackling  Avi' 
the  shell  on  his  head,  to  tell  it  to  a'  the  warld,  as  if  there  war- 
never  barley  grown  on  the  face  o'  the  earth  before.  ^  I  wonder 
whether  Isaiah  began  to  write  before  his  beard  was  grown, 
or  Dawvid  either  ?  He  had  mony  a  long  year  o'  shepherding 
an'  moss-trooping,  an'  rugging  an'  riving  i'  the  wildnerness, 
I'll  warrant,  afore  he  got  ihae  gran'  lyrics  o'  his  oot  o'  him. 
Ye  might  tak'  example  too,  gin  ye  Avere  minded,  by  Moses, 
the  man  o'  God,  that  was  joost  forty  years  at  the  learning  o' 
the  Egyptians,  afore  he  thocht  gude  to  come  forward  into 
public  life,  an'  then  fun',  to  his  gran'  surprise,  I  warrant,  that 
he'd  begun  forty  years  too  sune — an'  then  had  forty  years 
mair,  after  that,  o'  marching  an'  law-giving,  an'  bearing  the 
burdens  o'  the  people,  before  he  turned  poet." 

"  Poet,  sir  I  I  never  saw  Moses  in  that  light  before." 

"  Then  ye'll  just  read  the  90th  Psalm — '  the  prayer  o' 
Moses,  the  Man  o'  God' — the  grandest  piece  o'  lyric,  to  my 
taste,  that  I  ever  heard  o'  on  the  face  o'  God's  earth,  an'  see 
what  a  man  can  write  that'll  have  the  patience  to  wait  a 
century  or  twa  before  he  rins  to  the  publisher's.  I  gie  ye  up 
fra'  this  moment ;  the  letting  out  o'  ink  is  hke  the  letting  out 
o'  waters,  or  the  eating  o'  opium,  or  the  getting  up  at  public 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.        2'i  I 

meetings.  When  a  man  begins  he  canna  stop.  There's  uat 
mail*  enslaving  lust  o'  the  llesh  under  the  heaven  than  that 
Bamefiovr  scribe7icli,  as  the  Latins  hae  it." 

But  at  last  my  poems  were  printed,  and  bound,  and  act- 
ually published  ;  and  I  sat  staring  at  a  book  ol"  my  oAvn  mak- 
ing, and  wondering  how  it  ever  got  into  being !  And  what 
was  more,  the  book  "  took,"  and  sold,  and  was  reviewed  in 
People's  journals,  and  in  newspapers  ;  and  Mackayo  himsell 
relaxed  into  a  grin,  when  his  oracle,  the  Spcctaiar,  the  only 
honest  paper,  according  to  him,  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  con- 
descended, after  as.serting  its  impartiality  by  two  or  three 
searching  sarcasms,  to  dismiss  me,  grimly-benignant,  w^ith  a 
paternal  pat  on  the  shoulder.  Yes — I  was  a  real  live  author 
at  last,  and  signed  myself,  by  special  request,  in  the Mag- 
azine, as  "  the  author  of  Songs  of  the  Highways."  At  last 
it  struck  me,  and  Mackaye  too,  who,  however  he  hated  flun- 
kydom,  never  overlooked  an  act  of  discourtesy,  that  it  would 
be  right  for  me  to  call  upon  the  dean,  and  thank  him  formally 
for  all  the  real  kindness  he  had  shown  me.  So  I  went  to  the 
handsome  house  oft"  Harley-street,  and  was  shown  into  his 
study,  and  saw  my  own  book  lying  on  the  table ;  and  was 
welcomed  by  the  good  old  man,  and  congratulated  on  my  suc- 
cess, and  asked  if  I  did  not  see  my  own  wisdom  in  "  yielding 
to  more  experienced  opinions  than  my  own,  and  submitting  to 
a  censorship  which,  however  severe  it  might  haA^e  appeared 
at  first,  was,  as  the  event  proved,  benignant  both  in  its  inten- 
tions and  efiects?" 

And  then  I  was  asked,  even  I,  to  breakfast  there  the  next 
morning.  And  I  went,  and  found  no  one  there  but  some 
scientific  gentlemen,  to  M'hom  I  was  introduced  as  "  the  young 
man  Avhose  poems  we  were  talking  of  last  night."  And 
Lillian  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table,  and  poured  out  the  cofi^ee 
and  tea.  And  between  ecstasy  at  seeing  her,  and  the  intense 
relief  of  not  finding  my  dreaded  and  now  hated  cousin  there, 
I  sat  in  a  delirium  of  silent  joy,  stealing  glances  at  her  beauty, 
and  listening  with  all  my  ears  to  the  conversation,  which  turn-  ! 
ed  upon  the  new-married  couple.  i 

I  heard  endless  praises,  to  Avhich  I  could  not  but  assent  in  / 
silence,  of  Lord  EUerton's  perfections.     His  very  personal  ap- .' 
pearance  had  been  enough  to  captivate  my  fancy;   and  theu( 
they  went  on  to  talk  of  his  magnificent  philanthropic  schemes,) 
and  his  deep  sense  of  the  high  duties  of  a  landlord  ;  and  how, 
finding  himself,  at  his  father's  death,  the  possessor  of  two  vast 
but  neglected  estates,  he  had  Fold  one  in  order  to  be  able  to 


222  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

do  justice  to  the  other,  instead  of  laying  house  to  house,  and 
field  to  field,  like  most  of  his  compeers,  "  till  he  stood  alone  in 
the  land,  and  there  was  no  place  left ;"  and  how  he  had  low- 
ered his  rents,  even  though  it  had  forced  him  to  put  down  the 
ancestral  pack  of  hounds,  and  live  in  a  corner  of  the  old  castip  ; 
and  how  he  was  draining,  claying,  breaking  up  old  moorlands, 
and  building  churches,  and  endowing  schools,  and  improving 
oottages  ;  and  how  he  was  expelling  the  old  ignorant  bankrupt 
race  of  farmers,  and  advertising  every  where  for  men  of  capi- 
tal, and  science,  and  character,  who  would  have  courage  to 
cultivate  flax  and  silk,  and  try  eveiy  species  of  experiment ; 
and  how  he  had  one  scientific  farmer  after  another,  staying  in 
his  house  as  a  friend  ;  and  how  he  had  numbers  of  his  books 
re-bound  in  plain  covers,  that  he  might  lend  them  to  every 
one  on  his  estate  who  wished  to  read  them  ;  and  how  he  had 
thrown  open  his  picture-gallery,  not  only  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  neighboring  town,  but  what  (strange  to  say)  seemed  to 
strike  the  party  as  still  more  remarkable,  to  the  laborers  of  his 
own  village  ;  and  how  he  was  at  that  moment  busy  transform- 
ing an  old  unoccupied  manor-house  into  a  great  associate-farm, 
in  which  all  the  laborers  were  to  live  under  one  roof,  with  a 
common  kitchen  and  dining-hall,  clerks  and  superintendents, 
whom  they  were  to  choose,  subject  only  to  his  approval,  and 
all  of  them,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  have  their  own  in- 
terest in  the  farm,  and  be  paid  by  per-centage  on  the  profits  ; 
and  how  he  had  one  of  the  first  political  economists  of  the  day 
staying  with  him,  in  order  to  work  out  for  him  tables  of  pro- 
portionate remuneration,  applicable  to  such  an  agricultural 
establishment ;  and  how,  too,  he  was  giving  the  spade-labor 
system  a  fair  trial,  by  laying  out  small  cottage-farms,  on  rocky 
knolls  and  sides  of  glens,  too  steep  to  be  cultivated  by  the 
plow;  and  was  locating  on  them  the  most  intelligent  ar- 
tisans whom  he  could  draft  from  the  manufacturing  town  har.l 

by 

And  at  that  notion,  my  brain  grew  giddy  with  the  hope  of 
seeing  myself  one  day  in  one  of  those  same  cottages,  tilling 
the  earth,  under  God's  sky,  and  perhaps — and  then  a  whole 
cloud-world  of  love,  freedom,  fame,  simple,  graceful  country 
luxury  steamed  up  across  my  brain,  to  end — not,  like  the 
man's  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  in  my  kicking  over  the  tray 
of  China,  which  formed  the  base-point  of  my  inverted  pyramid 
of  hope — but  in  my  finding  the  contents  of  my  plate  deposited 
in  my  lap,  while  1  was  gazing  fixedly  at  Lillian, 

I  must  say  for  myself,  though,  that  such  accidents  happened 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOK  AND  rOKI'.  203 

Belcloni ;  whether  it  was  bashfuhiess,  or  the  tact  which  gener- 
ally, I  beheve,  accompanies  a  weak  and  nervous  body,  and  au 
active  mind ;  or  whether  it  was  that  I  possessed  enough  re- 
lationship to  Ihe  monkey-tribe  to  make  me  a  first-rate  mimic, 
I  used  to  eret  tolerably  well  through  on  these  occasions,  by 
acting  on  the  golden  rule  of  never  doing  any  thing  which  I 
had  not  seen  some  one  else  do  first — a  rule  which  never  brought 
me  into  any  greater  scrape  than  swallowing  something  intol- 
erably hot,  sour,  and  nasty  (whereof  I  never  discovered  the 
name),  because  I  had  seen  the  deau  do  so  a  moraent  before. 
But  one  thing  struck  me  through  the  whole  of  this  conver- 
sation— the  way  in  which  the  new-married  Lady  EUerton/ 
was  spoken  of,  as  aiding,  encouraging,  originating — a  help/ 
meet,  if  not  an  oracular  guide,  for  her  husband — in  all  thesa 
noble  plans.      She  had  already  acquainted  herself  with  ever\'i 
woman  on  the  estate  ;  she  was  the  dispenser,  not  merely  of 
alms,  for  those  seemed  a  disagreeable  necessity,  from  which 
Lord  EUerton  was  anxious  to  escape  as  soon  as  possible,  but 
of  advice,  comfort,  and  encouragement.      She  not  only  visited 
the  sick,  and  taught  in  the  schools — avocations  which,  thank 
God,  I  have  reason  to  believe  are  matters  of  course,  not  only 
in  the  families  of  clergymen,  but  those  of  most  squires  and 
noblemen,  when   they   reside  on  their  estates — but   seemed, 
from  the  hints  which  I  gathered,  to  be  utterly  devoted,  body 
and  soul,  to  the  welfare  of  the  dwellers  on  her  husband's  land. 
"  I   had   no  notion."  I   dared  at  last  to  remark,  humbly 
enough,  "  that  ]Miss — Lady  EUerton  cared  so  much  for  the 
people." 

"  Pteally  I  One  feels  inclined  sometimes  to  wish  that  she 
pared  for  any  thing  beside  them,"  said  Lillian,  half  to  her 
father  and  half  to  me. 

This  gave  a  fresh  shake  to  ray  estimate  of  that  remarkable 
woman's  character.  But  still,  who  could  be  prouder,  more 
imperious,  more  abrupt  in  manner,  harsh  even  to  the  very 
verge  of  good-breeding?  (for  I  had  learnt  what  good-breeding 
was,  from  the  debating  society  as  well  as  from  the  drawing- 
room)  ;  and,  above  all,  had  she  not  tried  to  keep  me  from 
Lillian?  But  these  cloudy  thoughts  melted  rapidly  away  in 
that  sunny  atmosphere  of  success  and  happiness,  and  I  went 
home  as  merry  as  a  bird,  and  wrote  all  the  morning  more 
gracefully  and  sportively,  as  I  fimcied,  than  1  had  ever  yet 
done. 

But  my  bliss  did  not  end  here.  In  a  week  or  so,  behold 
one  morning  a  note — written,  indeed,  by  the  dean — but  di- 


224  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

• 

reeled  iu  Lillian's  own  hand,  inviting  me  to  come  there  to  tea. 
that  I  might  see  a  few  of  the  literary  characters  of  the  day. 

I  covered  the  envelope  with  kisses,  and  thrust  it  next  my 
fluttering  heart.  I  then  proudly  showed  the  note  to  Mackaj'e. 
He  looked  pleased,  yet  pensive,  and  then  broke  out  with  a 
fresh  adaptation  of  his  favorite  song, 

" and  shovel  liats  and  a'  that— 

A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 

"  The  auld  gentleman  is  a  man  and  a  gentleman  ;  an'  has 
made  a  verra  courteous,  an'  well  considerit  move,  gin  ye  ha' 
the  sense  to  profit  by  it,  an'  no'  turn  it  to  yer  ain  destruction." 

"  Destruction  V 

"  Ay — that's  the  Avord,  an'  nothing  less,  laddie  I" 

And  he  went  into  the  outer  shop,  and  returned  with  a  vol- 
ume of  Bulwer's  "Ernest  Maltravers." 

"  What  I  are  you  a  novel  reader,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?" 

"  How  do  ye  ken  what  I  may  ha'  thocht  gude  to  read  in 
my  time?  Ye'll  be  pleased  the  noo  to  sit  down  an'  begin  at 
that  page — an'  read,  mark,  learn,  an'  inwardly  digest,  the 
history  of  Castruccio  Cesarini — an'  the  gude  God  gie  ye  grace 
to  lay  the  same  to  heart." 

I  read  that  fearful  story ;  and  my  heart  sunk,  and  my  eyes 
were  full  of  tears,  long  ere  I  had  finished  it.  Suddenly  I 
looked  up  at  Mackaye,  half  angry  at  the  pointed  allusion  to 
my  own  case. 

The  old  man  was  watching  me  intently,  with  folded  hands, 
and  a  smile  of  solemn  interest  and  affection  worthy  of  Socrates 
himself  He  turned  his  head  as  I  looked  up,  but  his  lips 
\  kept  moving.  1  fancied,  I  know  not  why,  that  he  was  pray- 
ing: for  me. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

'illE   TRIUxMPHANT  AUTHOR, 

So  to  the  party  I  went,  and  had  the  deh'ght  of  seeing  and 
Hearing  the  men  with  whose  names  I  had  been  long  ac- 
qnainted,  as  the  leaders  of  scientific  discovery  in  this  won- 
drous age  ;  and  more  than  one  poet,  too,  over  Avhose  works  J 
had  gloated,  whom  I  had  worshiped  in  secret.  Intense  Avas 
the  pleasure  of  now  realizing  to  myself,  as  living  men,  wear- 
ing the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  myself,  the  names  which  had 
been  to  me  mythic  ideas.  Lillian  was  there  among  them, 
more  exquisite  than  ever;  but  even  she  at  first  attracted  my 
eyes  and  thoughts  less  than  did  the  truly  great  men  around 
her.  I  hung  on  every  word  they  spoke,  I  watched  every 
gesture,  as  if  they  must  have  some  deep  significance  ;  the 
very  way  in  M'hich  they  drank  tlieir  cofiee  was  a  matter  of 
interest  to  me.  I  was  almost  disappointed  to  see  them  eat 
and  cliat  like  common  men.  I  expected  that  pearls  and 
diamonds  would  drop  from  their  lips,  as  they  did  from  those 
of  the  girl  in  the  fairy-t.ile,  every  time  they  opened  their 
mouths;  and  certainly  -he  conversation  that  evening  was  a 
new  world  to  me — though  I  could  only,  of  course,  be  a  list- 
ener. Indeed,  1  wished  to  be  nothing  more.  I  felt  that  1 
was  taking  my  place  there  among  the  holy  guild  of  authors — 
that  I  too,  however  humbly,  had  a  thing  to  say,  and  had  said 
it ;  and  I  was  content  to  sit  on  the  lowest  step  of  the  literary 
temple,  without  envy  for  those  elder  and  more  practiced 
priests  of  wisdom,  who  had  earned  by  long  labor  the  freedom 
of  the  inner  shrine.  I  should  have  been  quite  happy  enough 
standing  there,  looking  and  listening — but  I  was  at  last  forced 
to  come  forward.  Lillian  was  busy  chatting  with  grave, 
gray-headed  men,  who  seemed  as  ready  to  flirt,  and  pet  and 
admire  the  lovely  little  fairy,  as  if  they  had  been  as  vounnf 
and  gay  as  herself  It  was  enough  lor  me  to  see  her  appre- 
ciated and  admired.  I  loved  them  for  smiling  on  her,  for 
handing  her  from  her  seat  to  the  piano  with  reverent  courtesy  : 
gladly  would  I  have  taken  their  place  :  I  was  content,  how- 
ever, to  be  only  a  spectator ;  for  it  was  not  my  rank,  but  my 
youth,  I  was  glad  to  fancy,  which  denied  me  that  blisslul 
honor.  But  as  she  sang,  I  could  not  help  stealing  up  to  the 
piano;   and,  feasting  my  greedy  eyes   with   cverv  motiori  <it 


SJ6  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

those  delicious  lips,  listen  and  listen,  entranced,  and  living 
only  in  that  melody. 

Suddenly,  after  singing  two  or  three  songs,  she  began  finger- 
ing the  keys,  and  struck  into  an  old  air,  wild  and  plaintive, 
rising  and  falling  like  the  swell  of  an  ^olian  harp  upon  a 
distant  breeze. 

"  Ah  I  now,"  she  said,  "if  I  could  get  words  for  that  I 
What  an  exquisite  lament  somebody  might  write  to  it,  if 
they  could  only  thoroughly  take  in  the  feeling  and  meaning 
of  it." 

"  Perhaps,"  I  said,  humbly,  "  that  is  the  only  way  to  write 
Fongs — to  let  some  air  get  possession  of  one's  whole  soul,  and 
gradually  inspire  the  words  for  itself;  as  the  old  Hebrew  pro- 
phets had  music  played  before  them." 

She  looked  up,  just  as  if  she  had  been  unconscious  of  my 
presence  till  that  moment. 

"Ah  I  Mr.  Locke  I — well,  if  you  understand  my  meaning 
so  thoroughly,  perhaps  you  will  try  and  write  some  words  for 
me." 

"I  am  afraid  that  I  do  not  enter  sufficiently  into  the  mean- 
ing of  the  air." 

"  Oh  I  then,  listen  while  I  play  it  over  again.  I  am  sure 
you  ought  to  appreciate  any  thing  so  sad  and  tender." 

And  she  did  play  it,  to  my  delight,  over  again,  even  more 
gracefully  and  carefully  than  before — making  the  inarticulate 
sounds  speak  a  mysterious  train  of  thoughts  and  emotions.  It 
is  strange  how  little  real  intellect,  in  M'omen  especially,  is  re- 
quired for  an  exquisite  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  music 
— perhaps,  because  it  appeals  to  the  heart  and  not  the  head. 

She  rose  and  left  the  piano,  saying  archly,  "  Now,  don't 
forget  your  promise  ;"  and  I,  poor  Ibol,  my  sunlight  suddenly 
withdrawn,  began  torturing  my  brains  on  the  instant  to  think 
of  a  subject. 

As  it  happened,  my  attention  Avas  caught  by  hearing  two 
gentlemen  close  to  me  discuss  a  beautiful  sketch  by  Copley 
Fielding,  if  I  recollect  rightly,  which  hung  on  the  wall — a 
wild  waste  of  tidal  sands,  with  here  and  there  a  line  of  stake- 
nets  fluttering  in  the  wind — a  gray  shroud  of  rain  sweeping 
up  from  the  westward,  through  which  low  red  clifis  glowed 
dimly  in  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun — a  train  of  horses  and 
cattle  splashing  slowly  through  shallow  de.solate  pools  and 
creeks,  their  wet,  red,  and  black  hides  glittering  in  one  long 
hne  of  level  light. 

'J'hey  seemed  thoroughly  conversant  with  art;    and  as  I 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOK  AND  POET.  227 

listened  to  their  criticisms,  I  learnt  more  iu  five  miimles, 
iibout  the  characteristics  of  a  really  true  and  good  picture, 
and  ahout .  the  perfection  to  Avhieh  our  unrivaled  English 
landscape-painters  have  attained,  than  I  ever  did  from  all  the 
books  and  criticisms  which  I  had  read.  One  of  them  had 
seen  the  spot  represented,  at  the  month  of  the  Dee,  and  began 
telling  wild  stories  of  salmon-fishing,  and  wild-fowl  shooting 
— and  then  a  tale  of  a  girl,  who  in  bringing  her  father's  cattle 
home  across  the  sands,  had  been  caught  by  a  sudden  flow  of 
the  tide,  and  found  next  day  a  corpse  hanging  among  the 
stake-nets  far  below.  The  tragedy,  the  art  of  the  picture,  the 
simple,  dreary  grandeur  of  the  scenery,  took  possession  of  me ; 
and  I  stood  gazing  a  long  time,  and  fancying  myself  pacing 
the  sands,  and  wondering  whether  there  were  shells  upon  it 
— I  had  often  longed  for  once  only  in  my  life  to  pick  up  shells 
— when  Lady  EUerton,  whom  I  had  not  before  noticed,  woke 
ine  from  my  reverie. 

I  took  the  liberty  of  asking  after  Lord  EUerton. 

"  lie  is  not  in  town — he  has  staid  behind  for  one  day  to 
attend  a  great  meeting  of  his  tenantrj' — you  will  see  the  ac 
count  in  the  papers  to-morrow  morning — he  comes  to-mor 
row."  And  as  she  spoke,  her  whole  face  and  figure  seemed 
to  glow  and  heave,  in  spite  of  herself,  with  prid&  and  affec 
Uon. 

"  And  now,  come  with  me,  Mr.  Locke — the emba.s- 

sador  wishes  to  speak  to  you." 

"  The embassador  !"  I  said,  startled  ;   for  let  us  be  as 

democratic  as  we  will,  there  is  something  in  the  name  of  great 
officers  which  awes,  perhaps  rightly,  for  the  moment,  and  it 
requires  a  strong  act  of  self-possession  to  recollect  that  "  a  man's 
a  man  for  a'  that."  Besides,  I  knew  enough  of  the  great  man 
in  question  to  stand  in  awe  of  him  for  his  own  sake,  having 
lately  read  a  panegyric  of  him,  which  perfectly  astounded  me, 
by  its  description  of  his  piety  and  virtue,  his  family  afiection, 
and  patriarchal  simplicity,  the  liberality  and  philanthropy  of 
all  his  measures,  and  the  enormous  intellectual  powers,  and 
stores  of  learning,  which  enabled  him,  with  the  aflairs  of 
Europe  on  his  shoulders,  to  write  deeply  and  originally  on  the 
most  abstruse  questions  of  theology,  history,  and  science. 

Lady  EUerton  seemed  to  guess  my  thoughts.  "  You  need 
not  be  afraid  of  meeting  an  aristocrat,  in  the  vulgar  sense  of 
the  woi'd.  You  will  see  one  who,  once  perhaps  as  unknown 
as  yourself,  has  risen  by  virtue  and  wisdom  to  guide  the  des- 
tiiries  of  nations — and  shall  T  tell  you  how?     Not  by  fawning 


2Q8  ALTON  LOCXE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

and  yielding  to  the  fancies  of  the  great;  not  by  compromising 
his  own  convictions  to  suit  their  prejudices — " 

I  felt  the  rebuke,  but  she  went  on — 

"He  owes  his  greatness  to  having  dared,  one  evening,  to 
contradict  a  crown-prince  to  his  face,  and  fairly  conquer  him 
in  argument,  and  thereby  bind  the  truly  royal  heart  to  him 
ibrever." 

"  There  are  few  scions  of  royalty  to  who?e  favor  that  would 
be  a  likely  path." 

"  True ;  and  therefore  the  greater  honor  is  due  to  the  young 
student  who  could  contradict,  and  the  prince  who  could  be 
contradicted." 

By  this  time  we  had  arrived  in  the  great  man's  presence  ; 
he  was  sitting  with  a  little  circle  round  him,  iu  the  further 
drawing-room,  and  certainly  I  never  saw  a  nobler  specimen 
of  humanity.  I  felt  myself  at  once  before  a  hero — not  of  war 
and  bloodshed,  but  of  peace  and  civilization ;  his  portly  and 
ample  figure,  fair  hair  and  delicate  complexion,  and,  above 
all,  the  benignant  calm  of  his  countenance,  told  of  a  character 
gentle  and  genial — at  peace  with  himself  and  all  the  world  ; 
while  the  e.Kquisite  proportion  of  his  chiseled  and  classic  feat- 
ures, the  lofty  and  ample  brain,  and  the  keen,  thoughtful 
eye,  bespoke,  at  the  first  glance,  refinement  and  wisdom — 

The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will — 
Endurance,  foresight,  strength,  and  skill. 

I  am  not  ashamed  to  say.  Chartist  as  I  am,  that  I  felt  in- 
clined to  fall  upon  my  knees,  and  own  a  master  of  God's  own 
Iraaking. 

He  received  my  beautiful  guide  with  a  look  of  chivalrous 
afiection,  Avhich  I  observed  that  she  returned  with  interest  ; 
and  then  spoke  in  a  voice  peculiarly  bland  and  melodious. 

"  So,  my  dear  lady,  this  is  the  "proUge  of  Avhom  you  have 
so  often  spoken  ?" 

So  she  had  often  spoken  of  me  I  Blind  fool  that  I  was,  f 
only  took  it  in  as  food  for  my  own  self-conceit,  that  my  enemy 
(for  so  I  actually  fancied  her)  could  not  help  praising  me. 

"  I  have  read  your  little  book,  sir,"  he  said  in  the  samy 
soft,  benignant  voice,  "  with  very  great  pleasure.  It  is  an 
oilier  proof,  if  I  required  any,  of  the  undercurrent  of  living  and 
iiealthiul  thought  which  exists  even  in  the  less-known  ranks 
of  your  great  nation.  I  shall  send  it  to  some  young  friends 
of  mine  in  Germany,  to  show  them  that  Englishmen  can  lee] 
acutely  and  speak  boldly  on  the  social  evils  of  their  country, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POEt.        !:23 

without  indulging  in  that  frantic  and  bitter  revolutionary 
spirit,  which  warps  so  many  young  minds  among  us.  Yoii 
understand  the  German  language  at  all  ?" 

I  had  not  that  honor. 

"  Well,  you  must  learn  it.  We  have  much  to  teach  you 
in  th<D  sphere  of  abstract  thought,  as  you  have  much  to  teach 
us  in  ihose  of  the  practical  reason  and  the  knowledge  of  man 
hind.  I  should  be  glad  to  see  you  some  day  in  a  German 
university.  I  am  anxious  to  encourage  a  truly  spiritual  fra- 
ternization between  the  two  great  branches  of  the  Teutonic 
stock,  by  welcoming  all  brave  young  English  spirits  to  their 
ancient  fatherland.  Perhaps  hereafter  your  kind  friends  here 
will  be  able  to  lend  you  to  me.  The  means  are  easy,  thank 
God  I  You  will  find  in  the  Germans  true  brothers,  in  ways 
even  more  practical  than  sympathy  and  aflection." 

I  could  not  but  thank  the  great  man,  witli  many  blushes, 
and  went  home  that  night  utterly  "tcte  montee,'"  as  I  believe 
the  French  phrase  is — beside  myself  with  gratified  vanity  and 
love ;  to  lie  sleepless  under  a  severe  fit  of  asthma — sent  per- 
haps as  a  wholesome  chastisement,  to  cool  my  excited  spirits 
down  to  something  like  a  rational  pitch.  As  I  lay  castle-build- 
ing, Lillian's  wild  air  rang  still  in  my  ears,  and  combined 
itself  somehow  with  that  picture  of  the  Cheshire  Sands,  and 
the  story  of  the  drowned  girl,  till  it  shaped  itself  into  a  song, 
which  as  it  is  yet  unpublished,  and  as  I  have  hitherto  obtruded 
little  or  nothing  of  my  own  composition  on  my  readers,  I  mav 
be  excused  for  inserting  here. 

L 
"0  Mary,  go  and  call  the  cattle  home, 
And  call  the  cattle  home. 
And  call  the  cattle  home, 
Across  the  sands  o'  Dee;" 
The  western  wind  was  wild  and  dank  wi'  foam, 
And  all  alone  went  she. 

II. 
The  creeping  tide  came  up  along  the  sand, 
And  o'er  and  o'er  the  sand, 
And  round  and  round  the  sand, 
As  far  as  eye  could  see  ; 
The  blinding  mist  came  down  and  hid  the  land— 
And  never  home  came  she. 

III. 

"Oh,  is  it  weed,  or  fish,  or  floating  hair— 
A  tress  o'  golden  hair, 
0'  drowned  maiden's  hair, 


£30        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Above  the  nets  at  sea? 
Was  never  salmon  yet  that  shone  so  lair, 
Among  the  stakes  on  Dee."' 

IV. 
They  rowed  her  in  across  the  rollinq;  foam, 
The  cruel  cravvhnu  foam, 
The  cruel  hungry  foam 
To  her  grave  beside  the  sea : 
But  still  the  boatmen  hear  her  call  the  cattle  home 
Across  the  sands  o'  Dee. 

There — let  it  go  I — it  was  meant  as  an  oflering  for  one 
WT-iom  it  never  reached. 

About  mid-day  I  took  my  way  toward  the  dean's  house,  to 
thank  him  for  his  hospitality — and,  I  need  not  say,  to  present 
my  offering  at  my  idol's  shrine ;  and  as  I  went  I  conned  over 
a  dozen  complimentary  speeches  about  Lord  Ellerton's  wisdom 
liberality,  eloquence — but  behold  I  the  shutters  of  the  house 
were  closed.  What  could  be  the  matter?  It  was  full  ten 
mitmtes  before  the  door  was  opened  ;  and  then,  at  last,  an 
old  woman,  her  eyes  red  with  weeping,  made  her  appearance. 
My  thoughts  flew  instantly  to  Lillian — something  must  have 
befallen  her.  I  gasped  out  her  name  first,  and  then  recollect- 
ing myself,  asked  for  the  dean. 

"  They  had  all  left  town  that  morning." 

"  Miss — Miss  Winnstay — is  she  ill  ?" 

"No." 

"  Thank  God  !"  I  breathed  freely  again.  What  matter 
vhat  happened  to  all  the  world  beside  t 

"  Ay,  thank  God,  indeed ;  but  poor  Lord  Ellerton  was 
thrown  from  his  horse  last  night  and  brought  home  dead.  A 
messenger  came  here  by  six  this  morning,  and  they're  all  gone 

off  to .     Her  ladyship's  raving  mad.      And  no  wonder." 

And  she  burst  out  crying  afresh,  and  shut  the  door  in  my 
face. 

Lord  Ellerton  dead  !  and  Lillian  gone  too  I  Something 
whispered  that  I  should  have  cause  to  remember  that  day. 
My  heart  sank  within  me.     When  should  I  see  her  again  ? 

That  day  was  the  1st  of  June,  1845.  On  the  10th  of 
April,  1848,  I  saw  Lillian  Winnstay  again.  Dare  I  write 
my  history  between  those  two  points  of  time  ?  Yes,  even 
that  must  be  done,  for  the  a  \ke  of  the  rich  who  read,  and  the 
poor  who  suffer. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE  PLUSH  BREECHES  TRACED.:. 

My  tnunipli  had  received  a  cruel  check  enough,  vhen  just 
at  its  height,  and  more  were  appointed  to  follow.  Behold  . 
some  two  days  after,  another — all  the  more  bitter,  because 
my  conscience  whispered  that  it  was  not  altogether  undeserv- 
ed. The  people's  press  had  been  hitherto  praising  and  pet- 
ting me  lovingly  enough.  I  had  been  classed  (and  Heaven 
knows  that  the  comparison  was  dearer  to  me  than  all  the 
applause  of  the  M'ealthy)  with  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer,  and 
the  author  of  the  "Purgatory  of  Suicides."  My  class  had 
claimed  my  talents  as  their  own — another  "  voice  fresh  from 
the  heart  of  Nature,"  another  "  untutored  songster  of  the  wil- 
derness," another  "prophet  arisen  among  the  sufiering  mill- 
ions,"— when,  one  day,  behold  in  Mr.  O'Flynn's  paper  a  long 
and  fierce  attack  on  me,  my  poems,  my  early  history  I  How 
he  could  have  got  at  some  of  the  facts  there  mentioned,  how 
he  could  have  dared  to  inform  his  readers  that  I  had  broken 
my  mother's  heart  by  misconduct,  I  can  not  conceive  ;  unless/ 
my  worthy  brother-in-law,  the  Baptist  preacher,  had  been 
kind  enough  to  furnish  him  wth  the  materials.  But  how- 
ever that  may  be,  he  showed  me  no  mercy.  I  was  suddenly 
discovered  to  be  a  time-server,  a  spy,  a  concealed  aristocrat. 
Such  paltry  talent  as  I  had,  I  had  prostituted  for  the  sake  of 
fame.  I  had  deserted  The  People's  Cause  for  filthy  lucre — 
an  allurement  which  Mr.  O'Flynn  had  always  treated  with 
withering  scorn — in  lyrint.  Nay  more,  I  would  write,  and 
notoriously  did  M'rite,  in  any  paper,  Whig,  Tory,  or  Radical, 
v/here  I  could  earn  a  shilling  by  an  enormous  gooseberry,  or 
a  scrap  of  private  slander.  And  the  Avorking-men  were 
solemnly  warned  to  beware  of  me  and  my  Avritings,  till  the 
editor  had  further  investigated  certain  ugly  facts  in  my  history, 
which  he  would  in  due  time  report  to  his  patriotic  and  enlight- 
ened readers. 

All  this  stung  me  in  the  most  sensitive  nerve  of  my  whole 
ncart,  for  I  knew  that  I  could  not  altogether  exculpate  my- 
self; and  to  that  miserable  certainty  was  added  the  dread  oi 
Eome  fresh  exposure.  Had  he  actually  heard  of  the  omissions 
in  my  poems  ? — and  if  he  once  touched  on  that  subject,  what 
could  I  answer  ?     Oh  !  how  bitterfy  now  I  felt  the  force  of  tha 


232  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Icrilic's  careless  lash  I — the  awful  responsibility  of  those  writ> 
I  ten  words,  which  we  bandy  about  so  thoughtlessly  I  How  I 
recollected  now,  with  shame  and  remorse,  all  the  hasty  and 
cruel  utterances  to  which  T,  too,  had  given  vent  against  those 
who  had  dared  to  differ  from  me  ;  the  harsh,  one-sided  judg- 
ments, the  reckless  imputations  of  motive,  the  bitter  sneers, 
"  rejoicing  in  evil  rather  than  in  the  truth."  How  I,  too, 
had  longed  to  prove  my  victims  in  the  wrong,  and  turned 
away,  not  only  lazily,  but  angrily,  from  many  an  exculpatory 
fact  I  And  here  was  my  Nemesis  come  at  last.  As  I  had 
dane  unto  others,  so  it  was  done  unto  me  ! 

It  was  right  that  it  should  be  so.  However  indignant, 
mad,  almost  murderous,  I  felt  at  the  time,  I  thank  God  for  it 
now.  It  is  good  to  be  punished  in  kind.  It  is  good  to  be 
made  to  feel  what  we  have  made  others  feel.  It  is  good  — 
any  thing  is  good,  however  bitter,  which  shows  us  that  there 
is  such  a  law  as  retribution  ;  that  we  are  not  the  sport  of  blind 
chance  or  a  triumphant  fiend,  but  that  there  is  a  God  who 
judges  the  earth — righteous  to  repay  every  man  according  to 
his  works. 

But  at  the  moment  I  had  no  such  ray  of  comfort — and, 
full  of  rage  and  shame,  I  dashed  the  paper  down  before  Mae 
kaye.     "  How  shall  I  answer  him?      What  shall  I  say  ?" 

The  old  man  read  it  all  through  whh  a  grim  saturnine 
smile. 

"  Hoolie,  hoolie,  speech  is  o'  silver — silence  is  o'  gold,  says 
Thomas  Carlyle,  anent  this  an'  ither  matters.  Wha  'd  be 
fashed  wi'  sic  blethers  ?  Ye'U  just  abide  patient,  and  baud 
still  in  the  Lord,  until  this  tyranny  be  owerpast.  Commit 
your  cause  to  Him,  said  the  auld  Psalmist,  an'  he'll  mak' 
your  righteousness  as  clear  as  the  light,  an'  your  just  dealing 
as  the  noonday." 

"But  I  must  explain;  I  owe  it  as  a  duty  to  myself;  I 
must  refute  these  charges  ;  I  must  justify  myself  to  our 
friends." 

"  Can  ye  do  that  same,  laddie  ?"  asked  he,  with  one  of  his 
quaint,  searching  looks.  Somehow,  I  blushed,  and  could  not 
altogether  meet  his  eye,  while  he  went  on,  " — An'  gin  ye 
could,  whaur  Avould  ye  do  't  ?  I  ken  na  periodical  whar  the 
editor  will  gie  ye  a  clear  stage  an'  no  i'avor,  to  bang  him 
ower  the  lugs." 

"  Then  I  will  try  some  other  paper." 

"  An'  what  for  then  1  They  that  read  him,  winna  read 
the   ither ;    an'  ihey  that  read    the   ither,  winna  read  him, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOK  AND  PCiET.  233 

He  has  his  ain  set  o'  dupes,  Hke  every  ilher  editor ;  an'  yu 
mun  let  him  gang  liis  gate,  an'  feed  his  ain  kye  with  his  ain 
hay.     He'll  no'  change  it  for  your  biddiug." 

"  What  an  abominable  thing  this  whole  business  of  the 
press  is,  then,  if  each  editor  is  to  be  allowed  to  humbug  his 
readers  at  his  pleasure,  without  a  possibility  of  exposing  or 
contradicting  him  I" 

"An'  ye've  just  spoken  the  truth,  laddie.  There's  na  mair 
accursed  inquisition,  than  this  of  thae  selfelected  popes,  the 
editors.  That  puir  auld  Roman  ane,  ye  can  bring  him  forat 
whan  ye  list,  bad  as  he  is.  '  Fosnuni  habet  in  cornu ;'  his 
name's  ewer  his  shop-door.  But  these  anonymies — priests  o' 
ihe  order  o'  Melchisedec  by  the  deevil's  side,  without  father 
or  mither,  beginning  o'  years  nor  end  o'  days — Avithout  a 
local  habitation  or  a  name — as  kittle  to  hand  as  a  brock  in  a 
cairn — " 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?"  asked  I,  for  he  was 
getting  altogether  unintelligibly  Scotch,  as  was  his  custom 
when  excited. 

"  Ou,  I  forgot ;  ye're  a  puir  Southern  body,  an'  no'  sensible  to 
the  gran'  metaphoric  powers  o'  the  trne  Dawric.  But  it's  an 
accursit  state  a'thegither,  the  noo,  this  o'  the  anonymous  press 
— oreeginally  devised,  ye  ken,  by  Balaam  the  son  o'  Beor,  for 
serving  God  wi'out  the  deevil's  finding  it  out — an'  noo,  after 
the  way  o'  human  institutions,  translated  ower  to  help  folks 
to  serve  the  deevil  without  God's  finding  it  out.  I'm  no' 
astonished  at  the  puir  expiring  religious  press  for  siccan  a  fa' ; 
but  for  the  working-men  to  be  a'  as  bad — it's  grewsome  to 
behold.  I'll  tell  ye  what,  my  bairn,  there's  na  salvation  for 
the  workmen,  Avhile  they  defile  themselves  this  fashion,  wi' 
a'  the  A-^ery  idols  o'  their  ain  tyrants — wi'  salvation  by  act 
o'  parliament — irresponsible  rights  o'  property — anonymous 
Balaamry — fechtin'  that  canny  auld  farrant  fiend.  Mammon, 
wi'  his  ain  weapons — and  then  a'  fleyed,  because  they  get 
well  beaten  for  their  pains.  I'm  sair  forfaughten  this  mony  a 
year  wi'  watching  tlie  puir  gowks,  trying  to  do  God's  wark 
wi'  the  deevil's  tools.     Tak'  tent  o'  that." 

And  I  did  "tak'  tent  o'  it."  Still  there  would  have  been 
as  little  present  consolation  as  usual  in  Mackaye's  unwelcome 
truths,  even  if  the  matter  had  stopped  there.  But,  alas  I  it 
did  not  stop  there.  O'Flynn  seemed  determined  tc  "  run  a 
muck"  at  me.  Every  week  some  fresh  attack  appeared. 
The  very  passages  about  the  universities  and  church  property, 
which  had  caused  our  quarrel,  were  paraded  against  me,  with] 


234  ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

free  additions  and  comments;  and,  at  Jast,  to  my  horror,  out 
came  the  very  story  which  1  had  all  along  dreaded,  about  the 
expurgation  of  my  poems,  with  the  coarsest  allusions  to  pet- 
ticoat influence — aristocratic  kisses — and  the  Duchess  of 
Devonshire  canvassing  draymen  for  Fox,  &c.,  &c.  How  he 
got  a  clew  to  the  scandal  I  can  not  conceive.  Mackaye  and 
Crossthwaite,  I  had  thought,  were  the  only  souls  to  whom  I 
had  ever  breathed  the  secret,  and  they  denied  indignantly  the 
having  ever  betrayed  my  weakness.  How  it  came  out,  I  say 
again,  I  can  not  conceive  ;  except  because  it  is  a  great  ever- 
lasting law,  and  sure  to  fulfill  itself,  sooner  or  later,  as  we 
may  see  by  the  histories  of  every  remarkable,  and  many  an 
unremarkable  man,  "  There  is  nothing  secret,  but  it  shall  be 
made  manifest ;  and  whatsoever  ye  have  spoken  in  the  closet, 
shall  be  proclaimed  upon  the  house-tops." 

For  some  time  after  that  last  exposure,  I  vi'as  thoroughly 
crest-fallen — and  not  without  reason.  I  had  been  giving  a 
few  lectures  among  the  working-men,  on  various  literary  and 
social  subjects.  I  found  my  audience  decrease — and  those 
who  remained  seemed  more  inclined  to  hiss  than  to  applaud 
me.  In  vain  I  ranted  and  quoted  poetry,  often  more  violently 
than  my  own  opinions  justified.  My  words  touched  no  re- 
sponsive chord  in  my  hearers'  hearts  ;  they  had  lost  faith  in 
me. 

At  last,  in  the  middle  of  a  lecture  on  Shelley,  I  was  in- 
dulging, and  honestly  too,  in  some  very  glowing  and  passion- 
ate praise  of  the  true  nobleness  of  a  man,  whom  neither  birth 
nor  education  could  blind  to  the  evils  of  society  ;  who,  for  the 
sake  of  the  sufiering  many  could  trample  imder  foot  his  hered- 
itary pride,  and  become  an  outcast  for  The  People's  Cause. 

I  heard  a  whisper  close  to  me,  from  one  whose  opinion  I 
valued,  and  value  still — a  scholar  and  a  poet,  one  who  had 

S'  *asted  poverty,  and  slander,  and  a  prison,  for  The  Good  Cau.se  : 
"  Fine  talk  ;  but  it's  '  all  in  his  day's  work.'  Will  he  dare 
0  say  that  to-morrow  to  the  ladies  at  the  West-end  ?" 
No — I  should  not.  I  knew  it ;  and  at  that  instant  I  felt 
ayself  a  liar,  and  stopped  short — my  tongue  clove  to  the  roof 
f  my  mouth.  I  fumbled  at  my  papers — clutched  the  water 
tumbler — tried  to  go  on — stopped  short  again — caught  up  my 
hat,  and  rushed  from  the  room,  amid  peals  of  astonished 
laughter. 

It  was  some  months  after  this  that,  fancying  the  storm 
blown  over,  I  summoned  up  courige  enough  to  attend  a 
political  meeting  of  our  party;  but  even  there  my  Nemesis 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT.  JJ.) 

met  inc  full  face.  After  some  sanguinary  speech,  I  really 
forget  from  whom,  and  if  I  recollected,  God  forbid  that  I 
should  tell  now,  I  dared  to  controvert,  mildly  enough,  Heaven 
knows,  some  especially  frantic  assertion  or  other.  But  before 
1  could  get  out  three  sentences,  O'Flynn  flew  at  me  with  a 
coarse  invective  hounded  on,  by-the-by,  by  one  who,  calling 
nimself  a  gentleman  might  have  been  expected  to  know  bet- 
ter. But,  indeed,  he  and  O'Flynn  had  the  same  object  iu 
view,  which  was  simply  to  sell  their  paper ;  and  as  a  means 
to  that  great  end,  to  pander  to  the  llercest  passions  of  their 
readers,  to  bully  and  silence  all  moderate  and  rational  Chart- 
ists, and  pet  and  tar  on  the  physical-force  men,  till  the  poor 
fellows  began  to  take  them  at  their  word.  Then,  when  it 
came  to  deeds  and  not  to  talk,  and  people  got  frightened,  and 
the  sale  of  the  paper  decreased  a  little,  a  blessed  change  came 
over  them — and  they  awoke  one  morning  meeker  than  lambs ; 
"  ulterior  measures'  had  vanished  back  into  the  barbarous 
ages,  pikes,  vitriol-bottles,  and  all ;  and  the  public  were  enter- 
tained with  nothing  but  homilies  on  patience  and  resignation, 
the  "triumphs  of  moral  justice,"  the  "omnipotence  of  public 
opinion,"  and  the  "  gentle  conquests  of  fraternal  love" — till 
it  was  safe  to  talk  treason  and  slaughter  again. 

But  just  then  treason  happened  to  be  at  a  premium.  Sedi- 
tion, which  had  been  flou-ndering  on  in  a  confused,  disconso- 
late, under-ground  way  ever  since  1812,  was  supposed  by  the 
public  to  be  dead  ;  and  for  that  very  reason  it  was  safe  to 
talk  it,  or,  at  least,  back  up  those  who  chose  to  do  so.  And 
so  I  got  no  quarter — though  really,  if  the  truth  must  be  told, 
I  had  said  nothing  unreasonable. 

Home  I  went  disgusted,  to  toil  on  at  my  hack-writing,  only 
praying  that  I  might  be  let  alone  to  scribble  in  peace,  and 
often  thinking,  sadly,  how  little  my  friends  in  Harley-street 
could  guess  at  the  painful  experience,  the  doubts,  the  strug- 
gles, the  bitter  cares,  whicK  went  to  the  making  of  the  poetry 
which  they  admired  so  much  I 

I  was  not,  however,  left  alone  to  scribble  in  peace,  either 
by  O'Flynn  or  by  his  readers,  who  formed,  alas  I  just  then,  only 
too  large  a  portion  of  the  thinking  artisans  ;  every  day  brought 
some  i'resh  slight  or  annoyance  with  it,  till  1  received  one^ 
afternoon,  by  the  Parcels  Delivery  Company,  a  large  unpaid] 
packet  containing,  to  my  infinite  disgust,  an  old  pair  of  yellow 
plush  breeches,  with  a  recommendation  to  wear  them,  whose 
meaning  could  not  be  mistaken.  j 

Furious,  T  thrust  the  unoffending  garment  into  the  fire,  aps 


236  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  J  GET. 

held  it  there  with  the  tongs,  regardless  of  the  horrible  smell 
which  accompanied  its  martyrdom,  till  the  lady-lodger  on  the 
first  floor  rushed  down  to  inquire  whether  the  house  was  on  fire. 
I  answered  her  by  hurling  a  book  at  her  head,  and  brought 
down  a  volley  of  abuse,  under  which  I  sat  in  sulky  patience, 
till  Mackaye  and  Crossthwaite  came  in  and  found  her  railing 
in  the  doorway,  and  me  sitting  over  the  fire,  still  intent  on 
the  frizzling  remains  of  the  breeches. 

"  Was  this  insult  of  your  invention  Mr.  Crossthwaite  ?" 
asked  I,  in  a  tone  of  lofiy  indignation,  holding  up  the  last 
scrap  of  unroasted  plush. 

Roars  of  laughter  from  both  of  them  made  roe  only  more 
frantic,  and  I  broke  out  so  incoherently,  that  it  was  some  time 
before  the  pair  could  make  out  the  cause  of  my  fury. 

"  Upon  my  honor,  Locke,"  quoth  John,  at  last,  holding  his 
sides,  "  I  never,  sent  them  ;  though,  on  the  whole — you've 
made  my  stomach  ache  so  with  laughing,  I  can't  speak.  But 
you  must  expect  a  joke  or  two,  after  your  late  fashionable 
connections." 

I  stood,  still  and  while  with  rage. 
\  "  Really,  my  good  fellow,  how  can  you  wonder  if  our  friends 
1  suspect  youl  Can  you  deny  that  you've  been  ofl'and  on  late 
I  ly  between  flunkydom  and  The  Cause,  like  a  donkey  between 
I  two  bottles  of  hay  ?  Have  you  not  neglected  our  meetings  ? 
'  Have  you  not  picked  all  the  spice  out  of  your  poems  ?  And 
can  j'ou  expect  to  eat  your  cake  and  keep  it  too  ?  You  must 
'  be  one  thing  or  the  other  ;  and.  though  Sandy,  here,  is  too 
ikind-hearted  to  tell  you,  you  have  disappointed  us  both  miser- 
lably — and  there's  the  long  and  short  of  it." 

I  hid  my  face  in  my  hands,  and  sat  moodily  over  the  fire  ; 
my  conscience  told  me  that  I  had  nothing  to  answer. 

"  Whisht,  Johnnie  !  Ye're  ower  sair  on  the  lad.  He's  a' 
right  at  heart  still,  an'  he'll  do  good  service.  But  the  deevil 
a'ways  fechts  hardest  wi'  them  he's  maist  'feard  of  What's 
this  anent  agricultural  distress  ye  had  to  tell  me  the  noo  ?" 

"  There  is  a  rising  down  in  the  country,  a  friend  of  mine 
writes  me.  The  people  are  starving,  not  because  bvead  is 
dear,  but  because  it's  cheap;  and,  like  sensible  men,  they're 
going  to  have  a  great  meeting,  to  inquire  the  rights  and  wrong 
of  all  that.  Now,  I  want  to  send  a  deputation  down,  to  see 
how  far  they  are  inclined  to  go,  and  let  them  know  we  up  iu 
London  are  with  them.  And  then  we  might  get  up  a  cor> 
responding  association,  you  know.  It's  a  great  opening  foi 
spreading  the  principles  of  the  Charter." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  C37 

*'  I  sair  misdoubt,  it's  just  bread  tbey'U  bo  wanting,  thae 
laborers,  mair  than  liberty.  Their  God  is  their  belly,  I'm 
IhinkinfT,  and  a  verra  poor,  empty  idol  he  is -the  noo ;  sma' 
burnt-oflerings,  and  fat  o'  rams  he  gets,  to  propitiate  him. 
But  ye  might  send  down  a  canny  body,  just  to  spy  out  the 
nakedness  o'  the  land." 

"  I  will  go  I"  I  said,  starting  up.  "  They  shall  see  that  I 
do  care  for  The  Cause.  If  it's  a  dangerous  mission,  so  much 
the  better  ;  it  will  prove  my  sincerity.     Where  is  the  place?' 

"  About  ten  miles  from  D ." 

"  D I"     My  heart  sank — if  it  had  been  any  other  spot 

in  England  I  But  it  was  too  late  to  retract.  Sandy  saw 
what  was  the  matter,  and  tried  to  turn  the  subject ;  but  I 
was  peremptory,  almost  rude  with  him.  I  felt  I  must  keep 
lip  my  present  excitement,  or  lose  my  heart,  and  my  caste, 
for  ever  ;  and  as  the  hour  for  the  committee  was  at  hand,  I 
jiunped  up  and  set  off  thither  with  them,  whether  they  would 
or  not.  I  heard  Sandy  whisper  to  Crossthwaite,  and  turned 
quite  fiercely  on  him. 

"  If  you  want  to  speak  about  me,  speak  out.  If  you  fancy 
that  I  shall  let  my  connection  with  that  place"  (I  could  not 
bring  myself  to  name  it)  "stand  in  the  way  of  my  duty,  you 
do  not  know  me." 

I  announced  my  intention  at  the  meeting.  It  was  at  first 
received  coldly  ;  but  I  spoke  energetically — perhaps,  as  some 
told  me  afterward,  actually  eloquently.      When  I  got  heated, 

I  alluded  to  my  former  stay  at  D ,  and  said  (while  my 

heart  sank  at  the  bravado  which  I  was  uttering)  that  I  should 
consider  it  a  glory  to  retrieve  my  character  with  them,  and 
devote  myself  to  the  cause  of  the  oppressed,  in  the  very  local- 
ity whence  had  first  arisen  their  unjust  but  pardonable  sus- 
picions. In  short,  generous,  trusting  hearts  as  they  were, 
and  always  are,  I  talked  them  round  ;  they  shook  me  by  the 
hand  one  by  one,  bade  me  God-speed,  told  me  that  I  stood 
higher  than  ever  in  their  eyes,  and  then  set  to  work  to  vote 
money  from  their  funds  for  ray  traveling  expenses,  which  I 
magnanimously  refused,  saying  that  I  had  a  pound  or  two 
left  from  the  sale  of  my  poems,  and  that  I  must  be  allowed, 
as  an  act  of  repentance  and  restitution,  to  devote  it  to  The 
Cause. 

My  triumph  was  complete.  Even  O'Flynn,  who,  like  all 
Irishmen,  had  plenty  of  loose  good-nature  at  bottom,  and  was 
as  sudden  and  furious  in  his  loves  as  in  his  hostihties,  scram- 
bled over  the  ben^'ies,  regardless  cf  patriots'  toes,  to  shak« 


/ 


238  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POl'.T. 

me  violently  by  the  hand,  and  intorm  me  that  I  was  "  a  broth 
of  a  boy,"  and  that  "  any  little  disagreements  between  us  had 
vanished  like  a  passing  cloud  from  the  sunshine  of  our  frater- 
nity"— when  my  eye  was  caught  by  a  face  which  there  was 
no  mistaking — my  cousin's  I 

Yes,  there  he  sat;  watching  me  like  a  basilisk,  with  his 
dark,  glittering,  mesmeric  eyes,  out  of  a  remote  corner  of  the 
room — not  in  contempt  or  anger,  but  there  was  a  quiet,  assur 
ed,  sardonic  smile  about  his  lips,  which  chilled  me  to  the  heart 

The  meeting  was  sufficiently  public  to  allow  of  his  presence 
but  how  had  he  found  out  its  existence  ?  Had  he  come  ther 
as  a  spy  on  me  1     Had  he  been  in  the  room  when  my  visj 

to  D was  determined  on  1     I  trembled  at  the  thought  , 

and  1  trembled,  too,  lest  he  should  be  daring  enough — and  I 
knew  he  could  dare  any  thing — to  claim  acquaintance  with 
me  there  and  then.  It  would  have  ruined  my  new  restored 
reputation  forever.  But  he  sat  still  and  steady :  and  I  had 
to  go  through  the  rest  of  the  evening's  business  under  the 
miserable,  cramping  knowledge  that  every  word  and  gesture 
was  being  noted  down  by  my  most  deadly  enemy  ;  trembling 
whenever  I  was  addressed,  lest  some  chance  word  ot  an 
acquaintance  should  implicate  me  still  further — though, 
indeed,  I  was  deep  enough  already.  The  meeting  seemed 
interminable;  and  there  I  fidgeted,  M'ith  my  face  scaiiet — 
always  seeing  those  basilisk  eyes  upon  me — in  fancy,  lor  I 
dared  not  look  again  toward  the  corner  where  I  knew  they 
were. 

At  last  it  was  over — the  audience  went  out;  and  when  ] 
had  courage  to  look  round,  my  cousin  had  vanished  among 
them.  A  load  was  taken  off  my  breast,  and  I  breathed  freely 
again — for  five  minutes  ;  for  I  had  not  ruu'la  ten  steps  up  the 
street,  when  an  arm  was  familiarly  thiual  through  mine,  and 
1  found  myself  in  the  clutches  of  my  ovu  genius. 

"  How  are  you,  my  dear  fellow  ?  iiixpected  to  meet  you 
there.  Why,  what  an  orator  you  are  !  Really,  I  haven't 
heard  more  fluent  or  passionate  jiiiglish  this  month  of  Sun- 
days. You  must  give  me  a  lesson  in  sermon-preaching.  I 
can  tell  you,  we  parsons  want  a  hint  or  two  in  that  line.     So 

you're  going  down  to  D ,  to  see  after  those  poor  starving 

laborers  ?     'Pon  my  honor,  I  ve  a  great  mind  to  go  with  you." 

So,  then,  he  knew  all  I  However,  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  to  brazen  it  out ;  and,  besides,  T  was  in  his  power,  and 
however  hateful  to  me  his  fcceminj  cciviiality  might  be,  I  dared 
not  offend  him  at  tha'         '     * 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  239 

"  It  would  be  -well  if  you  did.  If  you  parsons  would  show 
yourselves  at  such  places  as  these  a  little  ofleuer,  you  v.ould 
do  more  to  make  the  people  believe  your  mission  real,  than  by 
all  the  tracts  and  sermons  in  the  world." 

"  But,  my  dear  cousin"  (and  he  began  to  snulTle  and  sink 
his  voice),  "  there  is  so  much  sanguinary  language,  so  much 
unsanctified  impatience  ;  you  frighten  away  all  the  meek 
apostolic  men  among  the  priesthood — the  very  ones  who  feel 
most  for  the  lost  sheep  of  the  flock." 

"  Then  the  parsons  are  either  great  Pharisees  or  great 
cowards,  or  both." 

"  Very  likely.  I  M'as  in  a  precious  fright  myself,  I  know, 
when  I  saw  you  recognized  me.  If  I  had  not  felt  strength- 
ened, you  know,  as  of  course  one  ought  to  be  in  all  trials,  by 
the  sense  of  my  holy  caUing,  I  think  I  should  have  bolted 
at  once.  However,  I  took  the  precaution  of  bringing  my 
Bowie  and  revolver  Avith  me,  in  case  the  worst  came  to  the 
worst." 

"  And  a  very  needless  precaution  it  was,"  said  I,  half 
laughing  at  the  quaint  incongruity  of  the  priestly  and  the  lay 
elements  in  his  speech.  "  You  don't  seem  to  know  much 
of  working-men's  meetings,  or  working-men's  morals.  Why. 
that  place  was  open  to  all  the  world.  The  proceedings  will 
be  in  the  newspaper  to-morrow.  The  whole  bench  of  bishops 
might  have  been  there,  if  they  had  chosen  ;  and  a  great  deal 
of  good  it  would  have  done  them  !" 

"  I  fnlly  agree  with  you,  my  dear  fellow.  No  one  hates 
the  bishops  more  than  we  true  high-churchmen,  I  can  tell 
you — that's  a  great  point  of  sympathy  between  us  and  the 
people.     But  I  must  be  off.     By-the-by,  would  you  like  me 

to  tell  our  friends  at  D ,  that  I  met  you  ?     They  often 

ask  after  you  in  their  letters,  I  assure  you." 

This  was  a  sting  of  complicated  bitterness.  I  felt  all  that 
it  meant  at  once.  So  he  was  in  constant  correspondence  with 
them,  while  I — and  that  thought  actually  drove  out  of  my 
head  the  more  pressing  danger  of  his  utterly  ruining  me  in 
their  esteem,  by  telling  them,  as  he  had  a  very  good  right  to 
do,  that  I  was  going  to  preach  Chartism  to  discontented  mobs. 

"  Ah  I  well  !  perhaps  you  Avouldn't  wish  it  mentioned  ? 
As  you  like,  you  know.  Or,  rather,"  and  he  laid  an  iron 
grasp  on  my  arm,  and  dropped  his  voice — this  time  in  earnest 
— "  as  you  behave,  my  wise  and  loyal  cousin  I     Good  night." 

I  went  home — the  excitement  of  self-applause,  M'hich  the 
meeting  had  called  up,  damped  by  a  strange  weight  of  fore- 


240  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

boding.  And  yet  I  could  not  help  laughing,  when,  just  as  1 
v/as  turning  into  bed,  Crossthwaite  knocked,  at  my  door,  ami, 
on  being  admitted,  handed  over  to  me  a  bundle  wrapped  up 
in  paper. 

"  There's  a  pair  of  breeks  lor  you — not  plush  ones,  this 
time,  old  fellow — but  you  ought  to  look  as  smart  as  possible 
There's  so  much  in  a  man's  looking  dignified,  and  all  thai, 
when  he's  speechifying.  Ho  I've  just  brought  you  down  my 
best  black  trovvsers  to  travel  in.  We're  just  of  a  size,  you 
know  ;  little  and  good,  like  a  Welshman's  cow.  And  if  you 
tear  them,  Avhy,  we're  not  like  poor,  miseraliC,  useless  aristo- 
crats ;  tailors  and  sailors  can  mend  their  own  rents."  And 
he  vanished,  whistling  the  Marseillaise. 

I  went  to  bed  and  tossed  about,  fancying  to  myself  my 
journey,  my  speech,  the  faces  of  the  meeting,  among  which 
Lillian's  would  rise,  in  spite  of  all  the  sermons  which  I 
preached  to  myself  on  the  impossibility  of  her  being  there,  of 
my  being  known,  of  any  harm  happening  from  the  move- 
ment ;  but  I  could  not  shake  off"  the  fear.  If  there  were  a 
riot,  arising  !  If  any  harm  were  to  happen  to  her  I  If — 
till,  mobbed  into  fatigue  by  a  rabble  of  such  miserable  hypo- 
thetic ghosts,  I  fell  asleep,  to  dream  that  I  was  going  to  be 
hanged  for  sedition,  and  that  the  mob  were  all  staring  and 
hooting  at  me,  and  Lillian  clapping  her  hands  and  setting 
them  on  ;  and  I  woke  in  an  agony,  to  find  Sandy  Mackaye 
standing  by  my  bedside  with  a  light. 

"  Hoolie,  laddie  I  ye  need  na  jump  up  that  way.  I'm  no' 
gaun  to  burke  ye  the  nicht ;  but  I  canna  sleep  ;  I'm  sair 
misdoubtful  o'  the  thing.  It  seems  a'  richt,  an'  I've  been 
praying  for  us,  an'  that's  mickle  for  me,  to  be  taught  our 
way  ;  but  I  dinna  see  aught  for  ye  but  to  gang.  If  your 
heart  is  richt  with  God  in  this  matter,  then  he's  o'  your  side, 
an'  I  fijar  na  what  men  may  do  to  ye.  An'  yet,  ye're  my 
Joseph,  as  it  were,  the  son  o'  my  auld  age,  wi'  a  coat  o'  many 
colors,  plush  breeks  included  ;  an'  gin  aught  take  ye,  ye' 11 
bring  down  my  gray  hafl'ets  wi'  sorrow  to  the  grave  I" 

The  old  man  gazed  at  me  as  he  spoke,  with  a  deep,  earn- 
est afiection  I  had  never  seen  in  him  before  ;  and  the  tears 
clistened  in  his  eyes  by  the  flaring  candlelight,  as  he  went  on. 

"  I  ha'  been  reading  the  Bible  the  nicht.  It's  strange 
how  the  words  o't  rise  up,  and  open  themselves,  whiles,  to 
puir  distractit  bodies  ;  though,  maybe,  no'  always  in  just  the 
orthodox  way.  An'  I  fell  on  that,  '  Behold,  I  send  ye  forth 
as  lambs  in  the  midst  of  ■wolves.      Bo  ye  therefore  wise  aa 


J 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  241 

serpents  an'  harmless  as  doves  ;'  an'  that  gave  me  comfort, 
laddie,  for  ye.  Mind  the  Avarning  ;  dinna  gang  wud,  what- 
ever ye  may  see  an'  hear ;  it's  an  ill  way  o'  showing  pity,  to 
gang  daft  anent  it.  Dinna  talk  magniloquently  ;  that's  the 
workman's  darling  sin.  An'  mind  ye  dinna  go  too  deep  wi' 
them.  Ye  canna  trust  them  to  understand  ye  ;  they're  puir 
foolish  sheep  that  ha'  no  shepherd — swine  that  ha'  no  wash, 
rather.  So  cast  na  your  pearls  before  swine,  laddie,  lest  they 
trample  them  under  their  feet,  an'  turn  again  an'  rend  ye." 

He  went  out,  and  I  lay  awake  tossing  till  morning,  making 
a  thousand  good  resolutions — like  the  rest  of  mankind. 

h 


CHAPTEll  }iXVllI. 
THE  MEN  AVHO  ARE  EATEN. 

With  many  instructions  from  our  friends,  and  warnmgs  iroin 
Mackaye,  I  started  next  day  on  my  journey.  When  I  last 
caught  sight  of  the  old  man,  he  was  gazing  fixedly  after  me, 
and  using  liis  pocket-handkerchief  in  a  somewhat  suspicious 
way.  I  had  remarked  how  depressed  he  seemed,  and  my  own 
spirits  shared  the  depression.  A  presentiment  of  evil  hung 
over  me,  which  not  even  the  excitement  of  the  journey — to 
me  a  rare  enjoyment — could  dispel.  I  had  no  heart,  somehow, 
to  look  at  the  country  scenes  around,  which  in  general  excited 
in  me  so  much  interest,  and  I  tried  to  lose  myself  in  summing 
up  my  stock  of  information  on  the  question  which  I  expected 
to  hear  discussed  by  the  laborers.  I  found  myself  not  alto- 
gether ignorant.  The  horrible  disclosures  of  S.  G.  O.,  and 
the  barbarous  abominations  of  the  Andover  Workhouse,  then 
fresh  in  the  public  mind,  had  had  their  due  eflect  on  mine  ; 
and,  like  most  thinking  artisans,  I  had  acquainted  myself  tol- 
erably from  books  and  newspapers  with  the  general  condition 
of  the  country  laborers. 

I  arrived  in  the  midst  of  a  dreary,  treeless  country,  whose 
broad  brown  and  gray  fields  were  only  broken  by  an  occasional 
line  of  dark  doleful  firs,  at  a  knot  of  thatched  hovels,  all  sink- 
ing and  leaning  every  way  but  the  right,  the  windows  patch- 
ed with  paper,  the  door-ways  stopped  with  filth,  which  sur- 
rounded a  beer-shop.  That  was  my  destination — unpromising 
enough  for  any  one  but  an  agitator.  If  discontent  and  misery 
are  preparatives  for  liberty — and  they  are — so  strange  and  un- 
like ours  are  the  ways  of  God — I  was  likely  enough  to  find 
them  there. 

I  was  welcomed  by  my  intended  host,  a  little  pert  snub- 
nosed  shoemaker,  who  greeted  me  as  his  cousin  from  London 
— a  relationship  which  it  seemed  prudent  to  accept. 

He  took  me  into  his  little  cabin,  and  there,  Milh  the  assist- 
ance of  a  shrewd,  good-natured  wife,  shared  with  me  the  best 
he  had  ;  and  after  supper  commenced,  mysteriously  and  in 
trembling,  as  if  the  very  walls  might  have  ears,  a  rambling 
bitter  diatribe  on  the  wrongs  and  suflerings  of  the  laborers  ; 
which  went  on  till  late  in  the  night,  and  which  I  shall  spare 
my  readers  :  for  if  they  have  cither  brains  or  hearts,  tlicy 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  A.ND  I'Oin  .  ::i.j 

ought  to  know  more  than  I  can  tell  them,  from  the  public 
prints,  and.  indeed,  from  their  own  eyes — although,  as  a  wise 
man  says,  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  to  make  people 
see  first  the  facts  which  lie  under  their  own  nose. 

Upon  one  point,  however,  which  was  new  to  me,  he  wa;: 
very  fierce — the  custom  of  landlords  letting  the  cottages  with 
their  farms,  for  the  mere  sake  of  saving  themselves  trouble; 
thus  giving  up  all  power  of  protecting  the  poor  man,  and  de- 
livering him  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  even  in  the  matter 
of  his  commonest  home  comforts,  to  farmers,  too  penurious, 
loo  ignorant,  and  often  too  poor,  to  keep  the  cottages  in  a 
state  fit  for  the  habitation  of  human  beings.  Thus  the  poor 
man's  hovel,  as  well  as  his  labor,  became,  he  told  me,  a  source 
of  profit  to  the  farmer,  out  of  which  he  Avrung  the  last  drop 
of  gain.  The  necessary  repairs  were  always  put  off  as  long 
as  possible — the  laborers  were  robbed  of  their  gardens — the 
slightest  rebellion  lost  them  not  only  work,  but  shelter  from 
the  eleiiients  ;  the  slavery  under  wjiich  they  groaned  ]^)enctra- 
ted  even  to  the  fireside  and.  to  the  bedroom. 

"  xVnd  who  was  the  landlord  of  this  parish  ?" 

"  Oh  I  he  believed  he  was  a  very  good  sort  of  man,  and 
uncommon  kind  to  the  people  where  he  lived,  but  that  was 
fifty  miles  away  in  another  county  ;  and  he  liked  that  estate 
better  than  this,  and  never  came  down  here,  except  for  the 
shooting." 

Full  of  many  thoughts,  and  tired  out  with  my  journey,  I 
went  up  to  bed,  in  the  same  loft  with  the  cobbler  and  his  wife, 
and  fell  asleep,  and  dreamed  of  Lillian. 

About  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning,  I  started  forth  with 
my  guide,  the  shoemaker,  over  as  desolate  a  country  as  men 
can  well  conceive.  Not  a  house  was  to  be  seen  for  miles,  ex- 
cept the  knot  of  hovels  which  we  had  left,  and  here  and  there 
a  great  dreary  lump  of  farm-buildings,  with  its  yard  of  yellow 
stacks.  Beneath  our  feet  the  earth  was  iron,  and  the  sky 
iron  above  our  heads.  Dark  curled  clouds,  "  which  had  built 
up  every  where  an  undcr-roof  of  doleful  gray,"  swept  on  before 
the  bitter  northern  wind,  which  whistled  through  the  low 
leafless  hedges  and  rotting  wattles,  and  crisped  the  dark  sod- 
den leaves  of  the  scattered  hollies,  almost  the  only  trees  in 
sight 

We  trudged  on,  over  wide  stubbles,  thick  with  innumerable 
»veeds  ;  over  wide  fallows,  in  which  the  deserted  plows  stood 
frozen  fast ;  then  over  clover  and  grass,  burnt  black  with  frost , 


ai4  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  A.\D  I'OET. 

then  over  a  field  of  turnips,  where  we  passed  a  large  fold  of  hur- 
dles, -within  which  some  hundred  sheep  stood,  with  their  heads 
turned  from  the  cutting  blast.  All  was  dreary,  idle,  silent  ; 
no  sound  or  sign  of  human. beings.  One  wondered  Avhere  the 
people  lived,  who  cultivated  so  vast  a  tract  of  civilized,  over- 
peopled, nineteenth-century  England.  As  we  came  up  to  the 
fold,  two  little  boys  hailed  us  from  the  inside — two  little 
^^•retches  Avith  blue  noses  and  white  cheeks,  scarecrows  of  rags 
and  patches,  their  feet  peeping  through  bursten  shoes  twice 
too  big  for  them,  who  seemed  to  have  shared  between  them  a 
ragged  pair  of  worsted  gloves,  and  cowered  among  the  sheep, 
under  the  shelter  of  a  hurdle,  crving  and  inarticulate  with 
cold. 

"  What's  the  matter,  boys  ?" 

"  Turmits  is  froze,  and  us  can't  turn  the  handle  of  the  cut 
ter.     Do  ye  gie  us  a  turn,  please  !" 

We  scrambled  over  the  hurdles,  and  gave  the  miserable 
little  creatures  the  benefit  of  ten  minutes'  labor.  They  seem- 
ed too  small  for  such  exertion;  their  little  hands  Avere  purple 
with  chilblains,  and  they  were  so  sorefooted  they  could  scarcely 
limp.  I  was  surprised  to  find  them  at  least  three  years  older 
than  their  size  and  looks  denoted,  and  still  more  surprised,  too, 
to  find  that  their  salary  for  all  this  bitter  exposure  to  the  ele- 
ments— such  as  I  believe  I  could  not  have  endured  two  days 
running — was  the  vast  sum  of  one  shilling  a  week  each,  Sun- 
days included.  "  They  didn't  never  go  to  school,  nor  to  church 
nether,  except  just  now  and  then,  sometimes — they  had  to 
mind  the  shep." 

I  went  on,  sickened  with  the  contrast  between  the  highly- 
bred,  over-fed,  fat,  thick-wooled  animals,  with  their  troughs 
of  turnips  and  malt-dust,  and  their  racks  of  rich  clover-hay, 
and  their  httle  pent-house  of  rock-salt,  having  nothing  to  do 
but  to  eat  and  sleep,  and  eat  again,  and  the  little  half-starved 
shivering  animals  Avho  were  their  slaves.  Man  the  master  of 
the  brutes  ?  Bah  I  As  society  is  now,  the  brutes  are  the 
masters — the  horse,  the  sheep,  the  bullock,  is  the  master,  and 
the  laborer  is  their  slave.  "  Oh  !  but  the  brutes  are  eaten  I" 
Well ;  the  horses  at  least  are  not  eaten — they  live  like  land- 
lords, till  they  die.  And  those  who  are  eaten,  are  certainly 
not  eaten  by  their  human  servants.  The  sheep  they  fat, 
another  kills,  to  parody  Shelley;  and,  after  all,  is  not  tho 
laborer,  as  well  as  the  sheep,  eaten  by  you,  my  dear  Society 
— devoured  body  and  soul,  not  the  less  really  because  you  arc 
longer  about  the  m^-l.  liiere  being  an  old  prejudice  against 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AM)   I'OKT.  215 

canmbalism,  and  also  against  murder — except  aCter  the  Riot 
Act  has  been  read. 

"What!"  shriek  the  insulted  respectabilities,  "have  wc  not 
paid  him  his  wages  weekly,  and  has  he  not  hved  upon  them?" 
Yes ;  and  have  you  not  given  your  sheep  and  horses  their 
daily  Avages,  and  have  they  not  lived  on  them  1  You  wanted 
to  work  them ;  and  they  could  not  work,  you  know,  unless 
they  wore  alive.  But  here  lies  your  iniquity  :  you  gave  the 
laborer  nothing  but  his  daily  food — not  even  his  lodgings;  the 
pigs  we.ve  not  stinted  of  their  wash  to  pay  lor  their  stye-room, 
the  raau  was  ;  and  his  wages,  thardcs  to  your  competitive  sy.s- 
tem.  were  beaten  down  deliberately  and  conscienliously  (for 
was  it  not  according  to  political  economy,  and  the  laws  there- 
of?) to  the  minimum  on  which  he  could  or  would  work,  with 
out  the  hope  or  the  po.?sibility  of  saving  a  farthing.  You 
know  how  to  invest  your  capital  profitably,  dear  Society,  and 
to  save  money  over  and  above  your  income  of  daily  comibrts  ; 
but  what  ha.s  he  saved  1  what  is  he  profited  by  all  those  years 
of  labor  ?  He  has  kept  body  and  soul  together — perhaps  he 
could  have  done  that  without  you  or  your  help.  But  his 
wages  are  used  up  every  Saturday  night.  When  he  stops 
working,  you  have  in  your  pocket  the  whole  real  profits  of  his 
nearly  fifty  years'  labor,  and  he  has  nothing.  And  then  you  say 
that  you  have  not  eaten  him  I  You  know,  in  your  heart  of 
hearts,  that  you  have.  Else,  why  in  Heaven's  name  do  you 
pay  him  poor's  rates  ?  If,  as  you  say,  he  has  been  duly  repaid 
in  wages,  what  is  the  meaning  of  that  half-a-crown  a  week  ? 
you  owe  him  nothing.  Oh,  but  the  man  would  starve — com- 
mon humanity  forbids  I  What  now.  Society  ?  Give  him 
alms,  if  you  will,  on  the  score  of  humanity  ;  but  do  not  tax 
people  for  his  support,  whether  they  choose  or  not — that  were 
a  mere  tyranny  and  robbery.  If  the  landlord's  feelings  will 
not  allow  him  to  see  the  laborer  starve,  let  him  give,  in  God's 
name  ;  but  let  him  not  cripple  and  drain,  by  compulsory  poor- 
rates,  the  farmer  who  has  paid  him  hi.s  ">just  remuneration" 
of  wages,  and  the  parson  who  probably,  out  of  his  scanty  in- 
come, gives  away  twice  as  much  in  alms  as  the  landlord  does 
<aut  of  his  superfluous  one.  No,  no;  as  long  as  you  retain 
compulsory  poor-laws,  you  confess  that  it  is  not  merely  humane 
but  just,  to  pay  the  laborer  more  than  his  wages.  You  con- 
fess yourself  in  debt  to  him,  over  and  above,  an  uncertain  sum 
which  it  suits  you  not  to  define,  because  such  an  investigation 
would  expose  ugly  gaps  and  patches  in  that  same  snug  com- 
petitive and  property  world  of  yours  ;  and,  therefore,  being  the 


24tJ  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Ktroug-er  party,  you  compel  your  debtor  to  give  up  the  claim 
which  you  confess  for  an  annuity  of  half-a-crown  a  week — that 
being  the  just-above-starving-point  of  the  economic  thermome- 
ter I  And  yet  you  say  you  have  not  eaten  the  laborer.  You 
see,  -we  workmen  too  have  our  thoughts  about  political  econ- 
omy, difleriiig  slightly  from  yours,  truly,  just  as  the  man  who 
is  being  hanged  may  take  a  somewhat  diilerent  view  of  the 
process  from  the  man  who  is  hanging  him  ;  which  view  is 
likely  to  be  the  more  practical  one  1 

With  some  such  thoughts  I  walked  across  the  open  down, 
toward  a  circular  camp,  the  earthwork,  probably  of  some  old 
British  town.  Inside  it,  some  thousand  or  so  of  laboring  peo- 
ple were  swarming  restlessly  round  a  single  large  block  of 
stone,  some  relic  of  Druid  times,  on  which  a  tall  man  stood, 
his  dark  figure  thrown  out  in  bold  relief  against  the  dreary 
sky.  As  we  pushed  through  the  crowd,  I  was  struck  witli 
the  wan,  haggard  look  of  all  faces  ;  their  lack-lustre  eyes  and 
drooping  lips,  stooping  shoulders,  heavy,  dragging  steps,  gave 
them  a  crushed,  dogged  air,  Avhich  was  infinitely  painful,  aiw' 
bespoke  a  grade  of  misery  more  habitual  and  degrading  than 
that  of  the  excitable  and  passionate  artisan. 

There  were  many  Avomen  among  them,  talking  shruly,  and 
looking  even  more  pinched  and  wan  than  the  men.  I  remark- 
ed, also,  that  many  of  the  crowd  carried  heavy  sticks,  pitch- 
forks, and  other  tools  which  might  be  used  as  fearful  weapons 
— an  ugly  sign,  which  I  ought  to  have  heeded  betimes. 

They  glared  with  sullen  curiosity  at  me  and  my  Londoner's 
clothes,  as,  with  no  small  feeling  of  self-im]>ortance,  I  pushed 
my  way  to  the  foot  of  the  stone.  The  man  who  stood  on  it 
seemed  to  have  been  speaking  some  time.  His  words,  like 
all  I  heard  that  day,  were  utterly  devoid  of  any  thing  like 
eloquence  or  imagination — a  dull  string  of  somewhat  incohe- 
rent complaints,  which  derived  their  force  only  from  the  in- 
tense earnestness,  which  attested  their  truthfulness.  As  far 
as  I  can  recollect,  I  will  give  the  substance  of  what  I  heard. 
But,  indeed,  I  heard  nothing  but  what  has  been  bandied 
about  from  newspaper  to  newspaper  for  years — confessed  by 
all  parties,  deplored  by  all  parties,  but  never  an  attempt  made 
to  remedy  it. 

— "  Thae  farmers  makes  slaves  on  us.  I  can't  hear  no 
diderence  between  a  Christian  and  a  nigger,  except  they  flogs 
the  niggers  and  starves  the  Christians  ;    and  I  don't  know 

which  I'd  choose.     I  served  Farmer seven  year,  ofl'aud 

on,  and  artcr  harvest  he  tells  me  he's  no  more  work  for  mt) 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  217 

iior  my  boy,  neither,  acause  he's  getting  too  Lig  for  him,  so  he 
gets  a  little  'un  instead,  and  we  docs  nothing ;  and  my  boy 
lies  about,  getting  into  bad  ways,  like  hundreds  more  :  and 
then  we  goes  to  board,  and  they  bids  us  go  and  look  lor  work ; 
and  wc  goes  up  next  part  to  London.  I  couldn't  get  none  ; 
they'd  enough  to  do,  they  said,  to  employ  their  own  ;  and  we 
begs  our  way  home,  and  goes  into  the  Union ;  and  they  turns 
us  out  again  in  two  or  three  days,  and  promises  us  work  again, 
and  gives  us  two  days'  gravel-pecking,  and  then  says  they  has 
no  more  for  us ;  and  we  was  sore  pinched,  and  laid  a-bed  all 
day  ;  then  next  board-day  we  goes  to  'em,  and  they  gives  ns 
one  day  more — and  that  threw  us  off  another  week,  and  then 
next  board-day  we  goes  into  the  Union  again  for  three  days, 
and  gets  sent  out  again :  and  so  I've  been  starving  one-half 
of  the  time,  and  they  putting  us  olF  and  on  o'  purpose  like 
that ;  and  I'll  bear  it  no  longer,  and  that's  what  I  says." 

He  came  down,  and  a  tall,  powerful,  well-fed  man,  evident- 
ly in  his  Sunday  smock-frock  and  clean  yellow  leggings,  got 
up  and  began  : 

"  I  havn't  no  complaint  to  make  about  myself.  I've  a 
good  master,  and  the  parson's  a  right  kind  'un,  and  that's 
more  than  all  can  say,  and  the  squire's  a  real  gentleman ;  and 
my  master,  he  don't  need  to  lower  his  wages.  I  gets  my  ten 
shillings  a  week  all  the  year  round,  and  harvesting,  and  a  pig, 
and  a  'lotment — and  that's  just  why  I  come  here.  If  I  can 
get  it,  why  can't  you  ?" 

"  'Cause  our  masters  baint  like  yourn." 

"  No,  by  George,  there  baint  no  money  round  here  away 
like  that,  I  can  tell  you." 

"And  why  aint  they?"  continued  the  speaker.  "  There's 
the  shame  on  it.  There's  my  master  can  grow  five  quarters 
M'here  yourn  only  grows  three ;  and  so  he  can  live  and  pay 
like  a  man  ;  and  so  he  say  he  don't  care  for  free  trade.  You 
know,  as  well  as  I,  that  there's  not  half  o'  the  land  round 
here  grows  what  it  ought.  They  aint  no  money  to  make  it 
grow  more,  and  besides,  they  won't  employ  no  hands  to  keep 
it  clean.  I  come  across  more  weeds  in  one  field  here,  than 
I've  seen  for  nine  year  on  our  farm.  Why  arn't  some  o'  you 
a-getting  thae  weeds  up  1  It  'ud  pay  'em  to  farm  better — 
and  they  knows  that,  but  they're  too  lazy ;  if  they  can  just 
get  a  living  off  the  land,  they  don't  care  ;  and  they'd  sooner 
save  money  out  o'  your  wages,  than  save  it  by  growing  more 
corn — it's  easier  for  'em,  it  is.  There's  the  work  to  be  done, 
and  they  won't  let  you  do  it.     There's  you  crying  out  for 


248  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET 

work,  and  work  cn^'ing  out  for  you — and  neilier  of  you  can 
get  to  the  other.  I  say  that's  a  shame,  I  do.  I  say  a  poor 
man's  a  slave.  He  daren't  leave  his  parish — nobody  won't 
employ  him,  as  can  employ  his  own  folk.  And  if  he  stays  in 
his  parish,  it's  just  a  chance  whether  he  gets  a  good  master  or 
a  bad  'un.  lie  can't  choose,  and  that's  a  shame,  it  is.  Why 
should  he  go  starving  because  his  master  don't  care  to  do  the 
best  by  the  land  ?  If  they  can't  till  the  land,  I  say  let  them 
get  out  of  it,  and  let  them  work  it  as  can.  And  I  think  as 
we  ought  all  to  sign  a  petition  to  government,  to  tell  'em  all 
about  it ;  though  I  don't  see  as  how  they  could  help  us,  unless 
they'd  make  a  law  to  force  the  squires  to  put  in  nobody  to  a 
farm  as  hadn't  money  to  work  it  fairly." 

"  I  says,"  said  the  next  speaker,  a  poor  fellow  whose  .sen- 
tences were  continually  broken  by  a  hacking  cough,  "just 
M'hat  he  said.  If  they  can't  till  the  land,  let  them  do  it  as 
can.  But  they  won't ;  they  won't  let  us  have  a  scrap  on  it, 
though  we'd  pay  'em  more  for  it  nor  ever  they'd  make  for 
themselves.  But  they  says  it  'ud  make  us  too  independent, 
if  we  had  an  acre  or  so  o'  land  ;  and  so  it  'ud,  for  they.  And 
so  I  says  as  he  did — they  want  to  make  slaves  on  vis  alto 
gelher,  just  to  get  the  flesh  and  bones  off'  us  at  their  own 
price.  Look  you  at  this  here  down.  If  I  ha!i«an  acre  on  it, 
to  make  a  garden  on,  I'd  live  well  with  my  wages,  off'  and 
on.  Why,  if  this  here  was  in  garden,  it  'ud  i3e  worth  twenty, 
forty  times,  o'  that  it  be  now.  And  last  spring  I  lays  out  o' 
work  from  Christmas  till  barley-sowing,  and  I  goes  to  the 
farmer  and  axes  for  a  bit  a  land  to  dig  and  plant  a  few  pota- 
toes— and  he  says,  '  You  be  d — d  I  If  you're  minding  your 
garden  after  hours,  you'll  not  be  fit  to  do  a  proper  day's  work 
for  me  in  hours — and  I  shall  want  you  by-and-by,  when  the 
weather  breaks' — for  it  was  frost  most  bitter,  it  was.  '  '  And 
if  you  gets  potatoes  you'll  be  getting  a  pig — and  then  you'll 
want  straw,  and  meal  to  fat  'un — and  then  I'll  not  trust  you 
in  my  barn,  I  can  tell  ye  ;'  and  so  there  it  was.  And  if  I'd 
had  only  one  hall-acre  of  this  here  very  down  as  we  stands  on, 
as  isn't  worth  five  shillings  a  year — and  I'd  a  given  ten  shil- 
lings for  it — my  belly  wouldn't  a'  been  empty  now.  Oh,  they 
be  dogs  in  the  manger,  and  the  Lord'll  reward  'em  therefor'  I 
First  they  says  they  can't  afford  to  work  the  land  'emselves, 
and  then  they  waint  let  us  work  it  either.  Then  they  says 
prices  is  so  lew  they  can't  keep  us  on,  and  so  they  lowers  our 
wages ;  and  then  when  prices  goes  up  ever  so  much,  cur  wages 
don't  go  up  with  'em,     So,  high  prices  or  low  prices,  it's  all 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        249 

the  same.  With  the  one  we  can't  buy  bread,  and  with  the 
other  we  can't  get  work.  1  don't  mind  free  trade — not  I :  to 
])e  sure,  if  the  loaf's  clieap,  we  shall  be  ruined  ;  but  if  the 
loaf's  dear,  we  shall  be  starved — and  for  that,  we  is  starved, 
now.  Nobody  don't  care  for  us ;  for  my  part  I  don't  much 
care  for  myself  A  man  must  die  some  time  or  other.  Only 
I  thinks  if  we  could  sometime  or  other  just  see  the  Queen 
once,  and  tell  her  all  about  it,  she'd  take  our  part,  and  not  sec 
us  put  upon  like  that,  I  do." 

"  Gentlemen  !"  cried  my  guide,  the  shoemaker,  in  a  some- 
what conceited  and  dictatorial  tone,  as  he  skipped  up  by  the 
speaker's  side,  and  gently  shouldered  him  down,  "  It  an't  like 
the  ancient  times  as  I've  read  of,  when  any  poor  man  as  had 
a  petition  could  come  promiscuously  to  the  King's  royal  pres- 
ence, and  put  it  direct  into  his  own  hand,  and  be  treated  like 
a  gentleman.  Don't  you  know  as  how  they  locks  up  the 
Queen  nowadays,  and  never  lets  a  poor  soul  come  anear  her, 
lest  she  should  hear  the  truth  of  all  their  iniquities  ?  Why, 
they  never  lets  her  stir  out  without  a  lot  o'  dragoons  with 
drawn  swords,  riding  all  around  her  ;  and  if  you  dared  to  go  up 
to  her  to  ax  mercy,  whoot  I  they'd  chop  your  head  ofl'before  you 
could  say  '  Please  your  Majesty  '  And  then  the  hypocrites 
say  it's  to  keep  her  from  being  frightened — and  that's  true — 
for  its  frightened  she'd  be,  with  a  vengeance,  if  she  knowed 
all  that  thae  grand  folks  make  poor  laborers  sufler,  to  keep 
themselves  in  power  and  great  glory.  I  tell  ye,  'tarnt  per- 
practicable,  at  all,  to  ax  the  Queen  for  any  thing  ;  she's  afeard 
of  her  life  on  'em.  You  just  take  my  advice,  and  sign  a  round- 
robin  to  the  squires — you  tell  'em  as  you're  willing  to  till  the 
land  for  'em,  if  they'll  let  you.  There's  draining  and  digging 
enough  to  be  done  as  'ud  keep  ye  all  in  work,  arn't  there  ?'' 

"Ay,  ay;  there's  lots  o'  work  to  be  done,  if  so  be  we 
could  get  at  it.     Every  body  knows  that." 

"  Well,  you  tell  'em  that.  Tell  'em  here's  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  ye  starving,  and  willing  to  work  ;  and  then  tell 
'em,  if  they  wont  find  ye  work,  they  shall  find  ye  meat. 
There's  lots  o'  victuals  in  their  larders  now;  haven't  you  as 
good  a  right  to  it  as  their  jackanapes  o'  footmen  ?  The  squires 
is  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  W^hat  do  you  stupid  fellows  go 
grumbling  at  the  farmers  for  ?  Don't  thae  squires  tax  the 
land  twenty  or  thirty  shiUings  an  acre  ;  and  what  do  they  do 
for  that  ?  The  best  of  'em',  if  he  gets  five  thousand  a  year 
out  o'  the  land,  don"t  give  back  five  hundred  in  charity,  or 
schools,  or  poor-rates — smd  what's  that  to  speak  of'l     And 


2.-jn        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

tlie  main  of  sin — curse  'em  I — they  drains  the  money  out  c 
the  laud,  and  takes  it  up  to  London,  or  into  foreign  parts,  to 
spend  on  fine  clothes  and  fine  dinners  ;  or  throws  it  away  at 
elections,  to  make  folks  beastly  drunk,  and  sell  their  souls  for 
money — and  we  gets  no  good  on  it.  I'll  tell  you  what  it's 
come  to,  my  men — that  we  can't  aflxjrd  no  more  landlords. 
We  can't  afiord  'em,  and  that's  the  truth  of  it  I" 

The  crowd  growlcxi  a  dubious  assent. 

"  O,  yes,  you  can  grumble  at  the  farmers,  acause  you  deals 
with  them  first-hand  ;  but  you  be  too  stupid  to  do  aught  but 
hunt  by  sight.  I  be  an  old  dog,  and  I  hunts  cunning.  I  sees 
farther  than  my  nose,  I  docs.  I  larnt  politics  to  London 
when  I  was  a  prentice ;  and  I  ain't  forgotten  the  plans  of  it. 
Look  you  here.  The  farmers,  they  say  they  can't  live  unless 
they  can  make  four  rents,  one  for  labor,  and  one  for  stock,  and 
one  for  rent,  and  one  for  themselves  ;  ain't  that  about  right  1 
Very  well ;  just  now  they  can't  make  four  rents — in  course 
they  can't.  Now,  v/ho's  to  suffer  for  that? — the  farmer  as 
works,  or  the  laborer  as  works,  or  the  landlord  as  does  noth- 
ing ?  But  he  takes  care  on  himself  He  won't  give  up  his 
rent — not  he.  Perhaps  he  might  give  back  ten  per  cent., 
and  what's  that  ? — two  shillings  an  acre,  maybe.  What's 
that,  if  corn  falls  two  pound  a  load,  and  more  ?  Then  the 
farmer  gets  a  stinting  ;  and  he  can't  stint  hisself,  he's  bad 
enough  oft^  already  :  he's  forty  shillings  out  o'  pocket  on  everj 
load  of  wheat — that's  eight  shillings,  maybe,  on  every  acre  of 
his  land  on  a  four-course  shift — and  where's  the  eight  shillings 
to  come  from,  for  the  landlord's  only  giving  him  back  two  on 
it  ?  He  can't  stint  hisself,  he  daren't  stint  his  stock,  and  so 
he  stints  the  laborers  ;  and  so  it's  you  as  pays  the  landlord's 
rent — you,  my  boys,  out  o'  your  flesh  and  bones,  you  do — and 
you  can't  afford  it  any  longer,  by  the  look  of  you — so  just  tell 
'em  so  I" 

This  advice  seemed  to  me  as  sadly  unpractical  as  the  rest. 
In  short,  there  seemed  to  be  no  hope,  no  purpose,  among  them 
— and  they  felt  it  ;  and  I  could  heax',  from  the  running  com- 
ment of  murmurs,  that  they  were  getting  every  moment  more 
fierce  and  desperate  at  the  contemplation  of  their  own  help- 
lessness— a  mood  which  the  next  speech  was  not  likely  to 
Eoften. 

A  pale,  thin  woman  scrambled  up  on  the  stone,  and  stood 
there,  her  scanty  and  patched  garments  fluttering  in  the  bitter 
breeze,  as,  with  face  sharpened  with  want,  and  eyes  fierce 
with  misery,  she  began,  in  a  querulous,  scornful  falsetto  • 


ALTON    LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  Sol 

"I  am  an  honest  woman.  I  brought  up  seven  cliildreu 
decently,  and  never  axed  the  parish  for  a  farden,  till  my 
husband  died.  Then  they  tells  me  I  can  support  myself  and 
mine — and  so  I  does.  Early  and  late  I  hoed  turmits,  and 
early  and  late  I  rep,  and  left  the  children  at  home  to  mind 
each  other ;  and  one  on  'em  fell  into  the  fire,  and  is  gone  to 
heaven,  blessed  angel  I  and  two  more  it  pleased  the  Lord  to 
take  in  the  fever ;  and  the  next,  I  hope,  will  soon  be  out  o' 
this  miserable,  sinful  Avorld.  But  look  you  here  :  three  weeks 
agone,  I  goes  to  the  board.  I  had  no  work.  They  say  they 
<^ould  not  relieve  me  for  the  first  week,  because  I  had  money 
vet  to  take.  The  hypocrites  I  they  knowing  as  I  couldn't  bult 
9we  it  all,  and  a  lot  more  beside.  Next  week  they  sends  the 
officer  to  inquire.  That  was  ten  days  gone,  and  we  starving. 
Then,  on  board-day,  they  gives  me  two  loaves.  Then,  next 
week,  they  takes  it  off  again.  And  when  I  goes  over  (five 
miles)  to  the  board  to  ax  why — they'd  find  me  work — and 
they  never  did ;  and  so  we  goes  on  starving  for  another  week 
— Ibr  no  one  Avouldn't  trust  us;  how  could  they,  when  w-j 
was  in  debt  already  a  whole  lot? — you're  all  in  debt  I" 
"  That  we  are." 

"  There's  some  here  as  never  made  ten  shillings  a  week  in 
Uieir  lives,  as  owes  twenty  pounds  at  the  shop  I" 

"  Ay,  and  more — and  how's  a  man  ever  to  pay  that  ?" 
"  So  this  week,  when  I  comes,  they  oflers  me  the  house 
Would  I  go  into  the  house  ?  They'd  be  glad  to  have  me, 
acause  I'm  strong  and  hearty  and  a  good  nurse.  But  would  ], 
that  am  an  honest  woman,  go  to  live  with  thae  offscourings — 
thae" — (she  used  a  strong  word) — "  would  I  be  parted  Irom 
my  children?  Would  I  let  them  hear  the  talk,  and  keep 
the  company  as  they  will  there,  and  learn  all  sorts  o'  sins  that 
they  never  heard  on,  blessed  be  God  I  I'll  starve  first,  and 
see  them  starve  too — though.  Lord  knows,  it's  hard.  Oh  ! 
it's  hard,"  she  said,  bursting  into  tears — "  to  leave  them  as  I 
did  this  morning,  crying  after  their  breakfasts,  and  I  none  to 
give  'em.  I've  got  no  bread — where  should  I  ?  I've  got  no 
fii-e — how  can  I  give  one  shilling  and  sixpence  a  hundred  lor 
coals?  And  if  I  did,  who'd  fetch  'em  home?  And  if  I 
jlared  break  a  hedge  for  a  nitch  o'  wood,  they'd  put  me  in 
prison,  they  would,  with  the  worst  —  what  be  I  to  do  1 
What  be  you  going  to  do  1  That's  what  I  came  here  for. 
What  be  ye  going  to  do  for  us  women — us  that  starve  and 
itint.  and  wear  our  hands  oft' for  you  men  and  your  children, 
and  get  hard  words,  and  hard  blows  from  you  ?     Oh  !  il'  i 


2d2  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

was  a  man,  I  know  what  I'd  do,  I  do  I  But  I  don't  think 
you  be  men,  three  parts  o'  you,  or  you'd  not  see  the  widow 
and  the  orphan  starve  as  you  do,  and  sit  quiet  and  grumble, 
as  long  as  you  can  keep  your  own  bodies  and  souls  together. 
Eh  I  ye  cowards  !" 

What  more  she  would  have  said  in  her  excitement,  which 
had  risen  to  an  absolute  scream,  I  can  not  tell ;  but  some 
prudent  friend  pulled  her  down  off  the  stone,  to  be  succeeded 
by  a  speaker  more  painful,  if  possible  ;  an  aged  blind  man, 
the  worn-out  melancholy  of  whose  slow,  feeble  voice  made  my 
heart  sink,  and  hushed  the  murmuring  crowd  into  silent  awe. 

Slowly  he  turned  his  gray,  sightless  head  from  side  to  side, 
as  if  feeling  for  the  faces  below  him — and  then  began  : 

"I  heard  you  was  all  to  be  here — and  I  suppose  you  are ; 
and  I  said  I  would  come — though  I  suppose  they'll  take  off 
my  pay,  if  they  hear  of  it.  But  I  knows  the  reason  of  it,  and 
the  bad  times  and  all.  The  Lord  revealed  it  to  me  as  clear 
as  day,  four  year  agone  come  Easter-tide.  It's  all  along  of 
our  sins,  and  our  wickedness — because  we  forgot  Him — it  is. 
I  mind  the  old  war  times,  what  times  they  was,  when  there 
was  smuggled  brandy  up  and  down  in  every  public,  and  M'ork 
more  than  hands  could  do.  And  then  how  we  all  forgot  the 
Lord,  and  went  after  our  own  lusts  and  pleasures — squires 
and  parsons,  and  farmers  and  laboring  folk,  all  alike.  They 
oughted  to  ha'  knowed  better — and  we  oughted  too.  Many's 
tlie  Sunday  I  spent  in  skittle-playing,  and  cock-fighting,  and 
the  pound  I  spent  in  beer,  as  might  ha'  been  keeping  me  now. 
We  was  an  evil  and  perverse  generation — and  so  one  o'  my 
sons  went  for  a  sodger,  and  was  shot  at  Waterloo,  and  the 
other  fell  into  evil  ways,  and  got  sent  across  seas — and  I  be 
left  alone  for  my  sins.  But  the  Lord  was  very  gracious  to 
me,  and  showed  me  how  it  was  all  a  judgment  on  my  sins, 
he  did.  He  has  turned  his  face  from  us,  and  that's  why 
we're  troubled.  And  so  I  don't  see  no  use  in  this  meeting. 
It  won't  do  no  good  ;  nothing  won't  do  us  no  good,  unless  we 
all  repent  of  our  wicked  ways,  our  drinking,  and  our  dirt,  and 
our  love-children,  and  our  picking  and  stealing,  and  gets  the 
Lord  to  turn  our  hearts,  and  to  come  back  again,  and  have 
mercy  on  us,  and  take  us  away  speedily  out  of  this  wretched 
world,  where  there's  nothing  but  misery  and  sorrow,  into  His 
everlasting  glory.  Amen  I  Folks  say  as  the  day  of  judgment's 
a  coming  soon — and  I  partly  tliink  so  myself  I  wish  it  was 
all  over,  and  we  in  heaven  above  ;  and  that's  all  1  have  to 
say." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOF/r.  2.J3 

It  seemed  a  not  unnatural  revulsion,  whoa  a  tail,  fierco 
man,  with  a  forbidding  squint,  sprung  jauntily  on  tlie  stone. 
and  setting  his  arms  a-kimbo,  broke  out : 

"Here  be  I,  Blinkey,  and  I  has  as  good  a  right  to  speak 
as  ere  a  one.  You're  all  blamed  fools,  you  are.  So's  that 
old  blind  buffer  there.  You  sticks  like  pigs  in  a  gate,  holler- 
ing and  squeaking,  and  never  helping  yourselves.  Why  can't 
you  do  like  me  ?  I  never  does  no  work — darned  if  I'll  work 
to  please  the  farmers.  The  rich  folks  robs  me,  and  I  robs 
them,  and  that's  fair  and  equal.  You  only  turn  poachers — 
you  only  go  stealing  turmits,  and  fire-ud,  and  all  as  you  can 
find — and  then  you'll  not  need  to  work.  Arn't  it  yourn  ? 
The  game's  no  one's,  is  it  now  ?  you  know  that.  And  if 
you  takes  turmits  or  corn,  they're  yourn — you  helped  to 
grown  'em.  And  if  you're  put  to  prison,  I  tell  ye,  it's  a 
darned  deal  Avarmer,  and  better  victuals  too,  than  ever  a  one 
of  you  gets  at  home,  let  alone  the  Union.  Now  I  knows  the 
dodge.  Whenever  my  wife's  ready  for  her  trouble,  I  gets 
cotched  ;  then  I  lives  like  a  prince  in  jail,  and  she  goes  to  the 
workus  ;  and  when  it's  all  over,  start  fair  again.  Oh  I  you 
blockheads  I  to  stand  here  shivering  with  empty  bellies.  You 
just  go  down  to  the  farm  and  burn  thae  stacks  over  the  old 
rasaal's  head  ;  and  then  they  that  let  you  starve  now,  will 
be  forced  to  keep  you  then.  If  you  can't  get  your  share  of 
the  poor-rates,  try  the  county  rates,  my  bucks — you  can  get 
fat  on  them  at  the  Queen's  expense — and  that's  more  than 
you'll  do  in  ever  a  Union  as  I  hear  on.  Who'll  come  down 
and  pull  the  farm  about  the  folks'  ears  ?  Warnt  it  he  as 
turned  five  on  yer  off  last  week  ?  and  aint  he  more  corn  there 
than  'ud  leed  you  all  round  this  day,  and  won't  sell  it,  just  be- 
cause he's  waiting  till  folks  are  starved  enough,  and  prices  rise  ? 
Curse  the  old  villain  I  who'll  help  to  disappoint  him  o'  that  ? 
Come  along !"' 

A  confused  murmur  arose,  and  a  movement  in  the  crowd. 
I  lelt  that  now  or  never  was  the  time  to  speak.  If  once  the 
spirit  of  mad,  aimless  riot  broke  loose,  I  had  not  only  uo 
chance  of  a  hearing,  but  every  likelihood  of  being  implicaled 
in  deeds  which  I  abhorred  ;  and  I  sprung  on  the  stone  and 
entreated  a  few  minutes'  attention,  telling  them  that  I  was  a 
deputation  from  one  of  the  London  Chartist  committees. 
This  seemed  to  turn  the  stream  of  their  thoughts,  and  they 
gaped  in  stupid  wonder  at  me,  as  I  began,  hardly  less  excited 
than  themselves. 

I  a.ssnred  them  of  the  sympathy  o^  the  London  working- 


'      ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

men,  made  a  comment  on  their  own  speec-hes — which  the 
reader  ought  to  be  able  to  make  for  himself,  and  told  them 
ithat  I  had  come  to  entreat  their  assistance  toward  obtaining 
Isuch  a  parliamentary  representation  as  would  secure  them 
Lheir  rights.  I  explained  the  idea  of  the  Charter,  and  begged 
for  theii  help  in  carrying  it  out. 

To  all  which  they  answered  surlily,  that  they  did  not  know 
iny  thing  about  politics — that  what  they  wanted  was  bread. 
I  went  on,  more  vehement  than  ever,  to  show  them  how 
fall  their  misery  sprung  (as  I  then  fancied)  from  being  unre- 
!  presented — how  the  laws  were  made  by  the  rich  for  the  poor, 
and  not  by  all  for  all — how  the  taxes  bit  deep  into  the  neces- 
\saries  of  the  laborer,  and  only  nibbled  at  the  luxuries  of  the 
I'ich — how  the  criminal  code  exclusively  attacked  the  crimes 
to  which  the  poor  were  prone,  while  it  dared  not  interfere 
with  the  subtler  iniquities  of  the  high-born  and  wealthy — how 
poor-rates,  as  I  have  just  said,  were  a  confession  on  the  part 
of  society  that  the  laborer  was  not  fully  remunerated.  I  tried 
to  make  them  see  that  their  interests,  as  much  as  common 
justice,  demanded  that  they  should  have  a  voice  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation,  such  as  would  truly  proclaim  their 
wants,  their  rights,  their  wrongs  ;  and  I  have  seen  no  reason 
since  then  to  unsay  my  words. 

To   all   which   they  answered,  that   their  stomachs  were 
empty,  and  they  wanted  bread.      "  And  bread  we  will  have  I" 
i       "  Go,  then,"  I  cried,  losing  my  self-possession  between  dis- 
'   appointment   and  the   maddening    desire   of  influence — and, 
I  indeed,  who  could  near  their  story,  or  even  look  upon  their 
I  faces,  and  not  feel  some  indignation  stir  in  him,  unless  self- 
inter  ist  had  drugged  his  heart  and  conscience,  "  co,"  I  cried, 
"  an;   get  bread  I     After  all,  you  have  a  right  to  it      No  man 
'   is  bo md  to  starve.     There  are  rights  above  all  laws,  and  the 
right  to  live  is  one.     Laws  were  made  for  man,  not  man  for 
laws.     If  you  had  made  the  laws  yourselves,  they  might  bind 
you  even  in  this  extremity  ;  but  they  were  made  in  spite  of 
you — against  you.      They  rob  you,  crush  you  ;  even  now  they 
deny  you  bread.     God  has  made  the  earth  free  to  all,  like  the 
air  and  sunshine,  and  you  are  shut  out  from  oil' it.      The  earth 
is  yours,  for  you  till  it.      Without  you  it  M'ould  be  a  desert. 
Go  and  demand  your  share  of  that  corn,  the  fruit  of  your  own 
industry.      What   matter,  if  your  tyrants  imprison,  murder 
you  ?  they  can  but  kill  your  bodies  at  once,  instead  of  killing 
them  ])iecemeal,  as  they  do  now ;   and  your  blood  will  cry 
against  them  from  the  ground  I  I     Ay,  woe  I"     I  went  on, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.       25J 

carried  away  by  feelings  for  which  I  shall  make  no  apology ; 
for,  however  confused,  there  was,  and  is,  and  ever  will  be,  a 
God's  truth  in  them,  as  this  generation  will  find  out  at  the 
moment  when  its  own  serene  self  satisfaction  crumbles  under- 
neath it,  "  Woe  unto  those  that  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor  I 
Woe  unto  those  who  add  house  to  house,  and  field  to  field, 
till  they  stand  alone  in  the  land,  and  there  is  no  room  left  for 
the  poor  man  I  The  wages  of  their  reiipers,  which  they  have 
held  back  by  fraud,  cry  out  against  them  ;  and  their  cry  has 
entered  into  the  ears  of  the  God  of  Heaven — " 

But  I  had  no  time  to  finish.  The  murmur  swelled  into  a 
roar,  for  "  Bread  !  Bread  I"  My  hearers  had  taken  me  at 
my  word.  I  had  raised  the  spirit ;  could  I  command  him, 
now  he  was  abroad  ? 

■■'  Go  to  Jennings's  Farm  I' 

"  No  I  he  aint  no  corn,  he  sold  un  all  last  week." 
"  There's  plenty  at  the  Hall  Farm  I     Rouse  out  the  old 
steward  I' 

And,  amid  yells  and  execrations,  the  whole  mass  poured 
down  the  hill,  sweeping  me  away  with  them.  I  was  shocked 
and  terrified  at  their  threats.  1  tried  again  and  again  to  stop 
and  harangue  them.  I  shouted  myself  hoarse  about  the  duty 
of  honesty  ;  warned  them  against  pillage  and  violence  ;  en- 
treated them  to  take  nothing  but  the  corn  which  they  actually 
needed  ;  but  m.y  voice  was  drowned  in  the  nproar.  Still  I 
felt  myself  in  a  measure  responsible  for  their  conduct  ;  1  had 
helped  to  excite  them,  and  dared  not,  in  honor,  desert  them  ; 
and,  trembling,  I  went  on,  prepared  to  see  the  worst  ;  follow- 
ing, as  a  flag  of  distress,  a  mouldy  crust,  brandished  on  the 
point  of  a  pitchfork.  i 

Bursting  through  the  rotting  and  halffallen  palinf{s,  we 
entered  a  Avide,  ru.'t.':->>.  neglected  park,  and  along  an  old  gravel 
road,  now  green  with  grass,  we  opened  on  a  sheet  of  frozen 
water,  and,  on  the  opposite  bank  the  huge  square  corpse  of  a 
Hall,  the  close  shuttered  windows  of  which  gave  it  a  dead  and 
ghastly  look,  except  where  here  and  there  a  single  open  one 
showed,  as  through  a  black  empty  eye-socket,  the  dark  unfur- 
nished rooms  within.  On  the  right,  beneath  us,  lay,  amid 
tall  elms,  a  large  mass  of  farm-buildings,  into  the  yard  of 
which  the  whole  mob  rushed  tumultuously — 'just  in  time  to 
gee  an  old  man  on  horseback  dart  out  and  gallop  hatless  up 
the  park,  amid  the  yells  of  he  mob. 

"  The  old  rascal's  gone  I  and  he'll  call  up  the  yeomanry. 
We  must  be  quick,  boys  I"   shouted  one  ;   and  the  first  signs 


255        ALTON  LOCKC,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

of  plur.ler  showed  themseh'es  in  an  indiscriminate  chase  after 
various  screaming  geese  and  turkeys  ;  Avhile  a  few  of  the  more 
steady  went  up  to  the  house-door,  .and,  knocking,  demanded 
sternly  the  granary  keys. 

A  fat  virago  planted  herself  in  the  doorway,  and  com- 
menced railing  at  them,  with  the  cowardly  courage  which  the 
fancied  immunity  of  their  sex  gives  to  coarse  women  ;  but  she 
was  hastily  shoved  aside,  and  took  shelter  in  an  upper  room, 
where  she  stood  screaming  and  cursing  at  the  window. 

The  invaders  returned,  cramming  their  mouths  with  bread, 
and  chopping  asunder  flitches  of  bacon.  The  granary-doors 
were  broken  open,  and  the  contents  scrambled  for,  amid  im- 
mense waste,  by  the  starving  wretches.  It  was  a  sad  sight. 
Here  was  a  poor  shivering  woman,  hiding  scraps  of  food  under 
her  cloak,  and  hurrying  out  of  the  yard  to  the  children  she 
had  left  at  home.  There  was  a  tall  man,  leaning  against 
the  palings,  gnawing  ravenously  at  the  same  loaf  Avith  a  little 
boy,  who  had  scrambled  up  behind  him.  Then  a  huge  black- 
guard came  whistling  up  to  me,  v/ith  a  can  of  ale.  "  Drink, 
my  beauty  !  you're  dry  with  hollering  by  now  I" 

"  The  ale  is  neither  yours  nor  mine  ;  I  won't  touch  it." 

"  Darn  your  buttons  !  You  said  the  wheat  was  onrn,  acause 
we  growed  it — and  thereby  so's  the  beer — for  we  groAved  the 
bai'ley  too." 

And  so  thouglit  the  rest ;  for  the  yard  was  getting  full  of 
drunkards,  a  woman  or  two  among  them,  reehng  knee-deep 
in  the  loose  straw  among  the  pigs. 

"  Thresh  out  thae  ricks  !"  roared  another. 

'■'■  Get  out  the  threshing-machine  I" 

"  You  harness  the  horses  I" 

"No!  there  baint  no  time.  Yeomanry  '11  be  here.  You 
mun  leave  the  ricks." 

"  Darned  if  we  do.     Old  Woods  shan't  got  nought  by  they." 

"  Fire  'cm,  then,  and  go  on  to  Slater's  Farm !" 

"  As  well  be  hung  for  a  sheep  as  for  a  lamb,"  hiccupped 
Blinkey,  as  he  rushed  through  the  yard  with  a  lighted  brand. 
I  tried  to  stop  him,  but  fell  on  my  face  in  the  deep  straw,  and 
got  round  the  barns  to  the  rick-yard,  just  in  time  to  hear  a 
crackle — there  was  no  mistaking  it ;  the  windward  stack  was 
in  a  blaze  of  fire. 

I  stood  awe-struck — I  can  not  tell  how  long — watching 
how  the  live  flame  snakes  crept  and  hissed,  and  leapt  and 
roared,  and  rushed  in  long  horizontal  jets  from  stack  to  stack 
hcibre  the  howling  Mind,  and  fastened  their  fiery  talons  on  the 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  257 

barn-eaves,  and  swept  over  the  peaked  roofs,  and  hurled  lliem- 
seives  in  fiery  flakes  into  the  yard  Leyond — the  i'ood  of  man, 
the  labor  of  years,  devoured  iu  aimless  ruin  ! — Was  it  my 
doing  ?      "Was  it  not  ? 

At  last  I  recollected  myself,  and  ran  round  again  into  tlic 
straw-yard,  where  the  fire  was  now  falling  fast.  The  only 
thing  Avhich  saved  the  house  was  the  w^eltering  mass  of  bul- 
locks, pigs,  and  human  beings  drunk  and  sober,  "which  tram- 
pled out  unwittingly  the  flames  as  fast  as  they  caught. 

The  fire  had  seized  the  roofs  of  the  cart-stables,  when  a 
great  lubberly  boy  blubbered  out : 

"  Git  my  horses  out  I  git  my  horses  out  o'  the  fire  !  I  be  so 
fond  o'  mun  I" 

"  Well,  they  aint  done  no  harm,  poor  beasts  !"  and  a  dozen 
men  ran  in  to  save  them  ;  but  the  poor  wretches,  screaming 
with  terror,  refused  to  stir.  I  never  knew  what  became  of 
ihem — but  their  shrieks  still  haunt  my  dreams 

The  yard  now  became  a  pandemonium.  The  more  ruffian- 
ly pai"t  of  the  mob — and  alas  !  there  were  but  too  many  of 
them — hurled  the  furniture  out  of  the  windows,  or  ran  off 
with  any  thing  that  they  could  carry.  In  vain  1  expostulated 
and  threatened  ;  I  was  answered  by  laughter,  curses,  frantic 
dances,  and  brandished  plunder.  Then  I  first  found  out  how 
large  a  portion  of  rascality  shelters  itself  under  the  wing  of 
every  crowd  ;  and  at  the  moment,  I  almost  excused  the  rich 
for  overlooking  the  real  sufferers,  in  indignation  at  the  rascals. 
But  even  the  really  starving  majority,  whose  faces  proclaim- 
ed the  grim  fact  of  their  misery,  seemed  gone  mad  for  the 
moment.  The  old  crust  of  sullen,  dogged  patience  had  broken 
up,  and  their  whole  souls  had  exploded  into  reckless  fury 
and  brutal  revenge — and  yet  there  Avas  no  hint  of  violence 
against  the  red  fat  woman,  who,  surrounded  with  her  blub- 
bering children,  stood  screaming  and  cursing  at  the  first-floor 
window,  getting  redder  and  latter  at  every  scream.  The 
worst  personality  she  heard  was  a  roar  of  laughter,  in  which, 
such  is  poor  humanity,  I  could  not  but  join,  as  her  little 
starved  drab  of  a  maid-of-all-work  ran  out  of  the  door,  with 
a  bundle  of  stolen  finery  under  her  arm,  and  high  above  the 
roaring  of  the  flames,  and  the  shouts  of  the  rioters,  rose  her 
mistress's  yell  : 

"  Oh  Betsey  !  Betsey  I  you  little  awdacious  unremorseful 
hussey  I  a-running  away  with  my  best  bonnet  and  shawl  I'' 

The  laughter  soon,  however,  suhsidel,  when  a  man  rushed 
breathless  inlu  llic-  y;ii-(l,  sliouting,    •  TIi^'  yeomanry!" 


•258  ALT3N  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET. 

At  that  sound,  to  my  astonishment,  a  general  panic  ensued 
The  miserable  wretches  never  stopped  to  inquire  how  many, 
or  how  far  off,  they  were — hut  scrambled  to  every  outlet  of 
the  yard,  trampling  each  other  down  in  their  hurry.  I  leaped 
up  on  the  wall,  and  saw,  galloping  down  the  park,  a  mighty 
armament  of  some  fifteen  men,  with  a  tall  officer  at  their 
head,  mounted  on  a  splendid  horse. 

"  There  they  be  I  there  they  be  I  all  the  varmers,  and  young 
Squire  Clayton  wi'  mun,  on  his  gray  hunter  I  O  Lord  I  O 
Lord  I  and  all  their  swords  drawn  I" 

I  thought  of  the  old  story  in  Herodotus — how  the  Scythian 
masters  returned  from  war  to  the  rebel  slaves  who  had  taken 
possession  of  their  lands  and  wives,  and  brought  them  down 
on  their  knees  with  terror,  at  the  mere  sight  of  the  old  dreaded 
dog-whips. 

I  did  not  care  to  run.  I  was  utterly  disgusted,  disappointed 
with  myself — the  people.  I  longed,  for  the  moment,  to  die 
and  leave  it  all ;  and  left  almost  alone,  sat  down  on  a  stone, 
buried  my  head  between  my  hands,  and  tried  vainly  to  shut 
out  from  my  ears  the  roaring  of  the  fire. 

At  that  moment  "  Blinkey"  staggered  out  past  me  and 
against  me,  a  writing-desk  in  his  hands,  shouting,  in  his 
drunken  glory,  "  I've  vound  ut  at  last  I  I've  got  the  old  fel- 
low's money  1  Hush  !  What  a  vule  I  be,  hollering  like  that !" 
And  ho  was  going  to  sneak  ofi^  with  a  face  of  drunken  cun- 
ning, when  I  sprung  up  and  seized  him  by  the  throat. 

"  Rascal  I  robber  I  lay  that  down  I  Have  you  not  done 
mischief  enough  already?" 

"I  wain't  have  no  sharing.  AVhat  ?  Do  you  want  un 
yourself,  eh?     Then  we'll  see  v/ho"s  the  stronger  I" 

And  in  an  instant  he  shook  me  from  him,  and  dealt  me 
a  blow  with  the  corner  of  the  desk,  that  laid  me  on  the 
ground 

II  just  recollect  the  tramp  of  the  yeomanry  horses,  and  the 
gleam  and  jingle  of  their  arms,  as  they  galloped  into  the  yard. 
I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  tall  young  officer,  as  his  great  gray 
horse  swept  through  the  air  over  the  high  yard-pales — a  feat 
to   me   utterly  astonishing.     Half-a-dozen   long   strides — the 
I     wretched  ruffian,  staggering  across  the  field  Avith  his  booty, 
I     was  caught  up.      The  clear  blade  gleamed  in  the  air — and 
I    then  a  luarful  yell — and  after  that  I  recollect  nothing. 

I  Slowly  1  recovered  my  consciousness.  I  was  lying  on  a 
truckle-bed — stone  walls  and  a  grated  window  '     A  man  stood 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  L>59 

over  me  with  a  large  bunch  of  keys  in  his  hand.  He  had 
been  wrapping  my  head  with  wet  towels.  I  knew,  instinct- 
ively, where  I  was. 

"  Well,  young  man,"  said  he,  in  a  not  unkindly  tone — 
"  and  a  nice  job  you've  made  of  it !  Do  you  know  Avhere  you 
are?" 

"Yes,"  answered  I,  quietly  ;  "in  D jail-" 

"Exactly  so  I" 

•  •  •  «  « 


CHAPTEPu  XXIX. 
THE  TRIAL. 

The  day  was  come — quickly,  thank  Heaven  ;  and  I  stood 
n.t  the  bar,  with  four  or  five  miserable,  haggaid  laborers,  to 
take  my  trial  for  sedition,  riot,  and  arson. 

I  had  passed  the  intervening  weeks  half  stupefied  with  the 
despair  of  utter  disappointment :  disappointment  at  myself 
and  my  own  loss  of  self-possession,  which  had  caused  all  my 
misfortune,  perhaps,  too,  and  the  thought  was  dreadful,  that 
of  my  wretched  fellow-sufierers,  disappointment  with  the 
laborers,  with  The  Cause;  and  when  the  thought  came  over 
me,  in  addition,  that  I  was  irreparably  disgraced  in  the  eyes 
of  my  late  patrons,  parted  forever  from  Lillian  by  my  own 
folly,  I  laid  down  my  head,  and  longed  to  die. 

Then,  again,  I  would  recover  awhile,  and  pluck  up  heart. 
I  would  plead  my  cause  myself — I  would  testify  against  the 
tyrants  to  their  face — I  would  say  no  longer  to  their  besotted 
slaves,  but  to  the  men  themselves,  "  Go  to,  ye  rich  men,  weep 
and  howl  I  The  hire  of  your  laborers  who  have  reaped  down 
your  fields,  which  is  by  you  kept  back  by  fraud,  crieth  ;  and 
tne  cries  of  them  that  have  reaped  hath  entered  into  the  ears 
of  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts."  I  would  brave  my  fate — I  would 
die  protesting,  and  glory  in  my  martyrdom.     But — 

"  Martyrdom  ?"  said  Mackaye,  who  had  come  up  to  D , 

and  was  busy  night  and  day  about  my  trial.  "  Ye'll  just  leave 
alone  the  martyr  dodge,  my  puir  bairn.  Ye're  na  martyr 
at  a',  ye'll  understand,  but  a  vcrra  foolish  callant,  that  lost 
his  temper,  an'  cast  his  pearls  befoi'e  swine — an'  very  question- 
able pearls  they,  too,  to  judge  by  the  price  they  fetch  i'  the 
market." 

And  then  my  heart  sank  again.  And  a  few  days  before 
the  trial  a  letter  came,  evidently  in  my  cousin's  handwriting, 
though  only  signed  with  his  initials  : 

"  Sir — You  are  in  a  very  great  scrape — you  will  not  deny 
that.  How  you  will  get  out  of  it  depends  on  your  own  com- 
mon sense.  You  probably  won't  be  hanged — lor  nobody  be- 
lieves that  you  had  a  hand  in  burning  the  i'arm  ;  but,  unless 
you  take  care,  ycu  will  be  transported.  Call  yourself  John 
Nokes ;  intrust  y:)ur  case  to  a  clever  lawyer  and  keep  in  the 


ALTON   LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET.  2C1 

backgrouiiil.  I  warn  you  as  a  fiieiid — if  you  try  to  spcecliify, 
and  ])lay  the  martyr,  and  let  out  who  you  are,  the  respectablo 
people  who  have  been  patronizhig  you  will  hnd  it  necessary, 
for  their  own  sakes,  to  chip  a  stopper  on  you  for  good  and  all, 
to  make  you  out  an  impos-tor  and  a  swindler,  and  pet  you  out 
of  the  way  for  life  :  while,  if  you  ave  quiet,  it  will  suit  them 
to  be  quiet  too,  and  say  nothing  about  you,  if  you  say  nothing 
about  them  ;  and  then  there  will  be  a  chance  that  they,  as 
Avell  as  your  own  family,  will  do  every  thing  in  their  power 
to  hush  the  matter  up.  So,  again,  don't  let  out  your  real 
name  ;  and  instruct  your  lawyers  to  know  nothing  about  the 
W.'s;  and  then  peidiaps  the  queen's  counsel  will  know  noth- 
ing about  them  either.  Mind,  you  arc  Avarned,  and  woe  to 
you  if  you  are  fool  enough  not  to  take  the  warning. 

"G.  L." 

Plead  in  a  false  name  I  Never,  so  help  me  Heaven  !  To 
go  into  court  with  a  lie  in  my  mouth — to  make  myself  an  im- 
postor— probably  a  detected  one — it  seemed  the  most  cunning 
scheme  for  ruining  me,  which  my  evil  genius  could  have  sug- 
gested, whether  or  not  it  might  serve  his  own  selfish  ends. 
J3ut  as  for  the  other  hints,  they  seemed  not  unreasonable,  and 
promised  to  save  me  trouble  ;  while  the  continued  pressure  of 
anxiety  and  responsibility  was  getting  intolerable  to  my  over- 
wearied brain.  So  I  showed  the  letter  to  Mackaye,  who 
then  told  me  that  he  had  taken  for  granted  that  I  should 
come  to  my  right  mind,  and  had  therefore  already  engaged  an 
old  compatriot  as  attorney,  and  the  best  counsel  which  money 
could  procure. 

"But  where  did  you  get  the  money  ?  You  have  not  surely 
been  spending  your  own  savings  on  me?" 

"  I  camia  say  that  I  wadna  ha'  so  dune,  in  case  o'  need. 
But  the  men  in  to'vn  just  subscribit ;  puir  honest  fellows." 

"What  I  is  my  folly  to  be  the  cause  of  robbing  them  of 
their  slender  earnings  ?  Never,  Mackaye  I  Besides,  they 
can  not  have  subscribed  enough  to  pay  the  barrister  whom 
you  just  mentioned.  Tell  me  the  whole  truth,  or,  pos'tively, 
I  will  plead  my  cause  myself" 

"  Aweel,  then,  there  was  a  bit  bank-note  or  twa  cam'  to 
liand — I  canna  say  whaur  fra'.  But  they  that  sent  it  direckit 
it  to  be  expendit  in  the  defense  o'  the  sax  prisoners — whereof 
ye  make  ane." 

A"-aiii  a  world  of  fruitless  conjecture.     It  must  be  the  same  J 
unknown  friend  who  had  paid  my  debt  to  my  cousin — Lillian  1 


262  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

And  so  the  day  was  come.  I  am  not  going  to  make  a  long 
picturesque  description  of  my  trial — trials  have  become  lately 
quite  hackneyed  subjects,  stock  properties  for  the  fiction-mon- 
gers— neither  indeed,  could  I  do  so  if  I  would.  I  recollect 
nothing  of  that  day,  but  fragments — flashes  of  waking  exist- 
ence, scattered  up  and  down  in  what  seemed  to  me  a  whole 
life  of  heavy,  confused,  painful  dreams,  with  the  glare  of  all 
those  faces  concentrated  on  me — those  countless  eyes  which  I 
could  not,  could  not  meet — stony,  careless,  unsympathizing — 
not  even  angry — only  curious.  If  they  had  but  frowned  on 
me,  insulted  me,  gnashed  their  teeth  on  ine,  I  could  have 
glared  back  defiance  ;  as  it  was,  I  stood  cowed  and  stupefied, 
a  craven  by  the  side  of  cravens. 

Let  me  see — what  can  I  recollect  ?  Those  faces — faces — 
every  where  faces — a  faint,  sickly  smell  of  flowers — a  perpet- 
ual whispering  and  rustling  of  dresses — and  all  through  it, 
the  voice  of  some  one  talking,  talking — I  seldom  knew  what, 
or  whether  it  was  counsel,  witness,  judge,  or  prisoner,  that 
was  speaking.  I  was  like  one  asleep  at  a  foolish  lecture,  who 
hears  in  dreams,  and  only  wakes  when  the  prosing  stops.  Was 
it  not  prosing  1  What  was  it  to  me  what  they  said  1  They 
i;ould  not  understand  me — my  motives — my  excuses  ;  the 
whole  pleading,  on  my  side  as  well  as  the  crown's,  seemed 
one  huge  fallacy — beside  the  matter  altogether — never  touch- 
ing the  real  point  at  issue,  the  eternal  moral  equity  of  my 
deeds  or  misdeeds.  I  had  no  doubt  that  it  would  all  be  con- 
ducted quite  properly,  and  fairly,  and  according  to  the  forms 
of  law  ;  but  what  was  law  to  me  ?  I  wanted  justice.  And 
so  I  let  them  go  on  their  own  way,  conscious  of  but  one 
thought — was  Lilhan  in  the  court? 

I  dared  not  look  and  see.  I  dared  not  lift  up  my  eyes  to- 
ward the  gaudy  rows  of  ladies  who  had  crowded  to  the  "  in- 
teresting trial  of  the  D rioters."     The  torture  of  anxiety 

was  less  than  that  of  certainty  might  be,  and  I  kept  my  eyes 
down,  and  wondered  how  on  earth  the  attorneys  had  found  in 
so  simple  a  case  enough  to  stuff' those  great  blue  bags. 

When,  however,  any  thing  did  seem  likely  to  touch  on  a 
reality,  I  woke  up  forthwith,  in  spite  of  myself  I  recollect 
well,  lor  instance,  a  squabble  about  challenging  the  jurymen; 
and  my  counsel's  voice  of  pious  indignation,  as  he  asked, 
"  Do  you  call  these  agricultural  gentlemen  and  farmers,  how- 
ever excellent  and  respectable — on  which  point  Heaven  for- 
bid that  I,  &c.,  &c. — the  prisoner's  'pares,'  peers,  equals,  or 
likes  1     What  single  interest,  opinion,  or  motive  have  they  ir. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  2G3 

common,  but  the  universal  one  of  self-interest,  which,  in  this 
case,  happens  to  pull  in  exactly  opposite  directions  ?  Your 
lordship  has  often  animadverted  fully  and  l)oldly  on  the  prac- 
tice of  allowing  a  bench  of  squires  to  sit  in  judgment  on  a 
poacher;  surely  it  is  quite  as  unjust  that  agricultural  rioters 
should  be  tried  by  a  jury  of  the  very  class  against  whom  they 
are  accused  of  rebelling." 

"Perhaps  my  learned  brother  would  like  a  jury  of  rioters  1" 
Euggested  some  queen's  counsel. 

"  Upon  my  word,  then,  it  would  be  much  the  fairer  plan." 

I  wondered  M'hether  he  would  have  dared  to  say  as  much 
in  the  street  outside — and  relapsed  into  indilTerence.  I  believe 
there  was  some  long  delay,  and  wrangling  about  law-quibbles, 
which  seemed  likely  at  one  time  to  quash  the  whole  prosecu- 
tion ;  but  I  was  rather  glad  than  sorry  to  find  that  it  had 
been  overruled.  It  was  all  a  play,  a  game  of  bowls — the 
bowls  happening  to  be  human  heads — got  up  between  the 
lawyers,  lor  the  edification  of  society ;  and  it  would  have  been 
a  pity  not  to  play  it  out  according  to  the  rules  and  regulations 
thereof 

As  for  the  evidence,  its  tenor  may  be  easily  supposed  from 
my  story.  There  were  those  who  could  swear  to  my  language 
at  the  camp.  I  was  seen  accompanying  the  mob  to  the  farm, 
and  haranguing  them.  The  noise  was  too  great  for  the  wit- 
nesses to  hear  all  I  said,  but  they  were  certain  I  talked  about 
the  sacred  name  of  liberty.  The  farmer's  wife  had  seen  me 
run  round  to  the  stacks  M'hen  they  were  fired — whether  just 
before  or  just  after,  she  never  mentioned.  She  had  seen  me 
running  up  and  down  in  front  of  the  house,  talking  loudly,  and 
gesticulating  violently ;  she  saw  me,  too,  struggling  with  an- 
other rioter  for  her  husband's  desk  ; — and  the  rest  of  the  wit- 
nesses, some  of  whom  I  am  certain  I  had  seen  busy  plun- 
dering, though  they  were  ready  to  swear  that  they  had  been 
merely  accidental  passers-by,  seemed  to  think  that  they  proved 
their  own  innocence,  and  testified  their  pious  indignation  by 
avoiding  carefully  any  fact  which  could  excuse  me.  But, 
somehow,  my  counsel  thought  difierently ;  and  cross-examined, 
and  bullied,  and  tormented,  and  misstated — as  he  Avas  bound 
to  do ;  and  so  one  witness  after  another,  clumsy  and  cowardly 
enough  already,  was  driven  by  his  engines  of  torture,  as  if  by 
a  pitiless  spell,  to  deny  half  that  he  had  deposed  truly,  and 
confess  a  great  deal  that  was  utterly  false — till  confusion  be- 
came worse  confounded,  and  there  seemed  no  truth  anywhere, 
and  no  falsehood  either,  and  "  n;night  was  every  thing,  and 


•J64  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

every  thing  was  naught ;"  till  I  began  to  have  doubts  whether 
the  riot  had  ever  occurred  at  all — and,  indeed,  doubts  of  my 
own  identity  also,  when  I  had  heard  the  counsel  for  the  crown 
impute  to  me,  personally,  as  in  duty  bound,  every  seditious 
atrocity  which  had  been  committed  either  in  England  or  Franco 
since  1793.  To  him,  certainly,  I  did  listen  tolerably;  it  was 
"  as  good  as  a  play.'"  Atheism,  blasphemy,  vitriol-throwing,  and 
commujtiity  of  women  were  among  my  lighter  oflenses — for 
had  I  not  actually  been  engaged  in  a  plot  for  the  destruction 
of  property  ?  How  did  the  court  know  that  I  had  not  spent 
tlie  night  before  the  riot,  as  "the  doctor"  and  his  friends  did 
before  the  riots  of  1839,  in  drawing  lots  for  the  estates  of  the 
surrounding  gentlemen,  wi^h  my  deluded  dupes  and  victims  ? 
— for  of  course  1,  and  not  want  of  work,  had  deluded  them 
into  rioting;  at  least,  they  never  would  have  known  that  they 
were  starving,  if  I  had  not  stirred  up  their  evil  passions  by 
daring  to  inform  them  of  that  otherwise  impalpable  fact.  I, 
the  only  Chartist  there  1  Might  there  not  have  been  dozens 
of  them  ? — emissaries  from  London,  dressed  up  as  starving 
laborers,  and  rheumatic  old  women  ?  There  were  actually 
traces  of  a  plan  for  seizing  all  the  ladies  in  the  country,  and 

setting  up  a  seraglio  of  them  in  D Cathedral.     How  did 

the  court  know  that  there  was  not  one  ? 

Ay,  how  indeed  ?  and  how  did  I  know  either  ?  I  really 
began  to  question  whether  the  man  might  not  be  right  after 
all.  The  whole  theory  seemed  so  horribly  coherent — possible 
— natural.  I  might  have  done  it,  under  possession  of  the 
devil,  and  forgotten  it  in  excitement — I  might — perhaps  I  did. 
And  if  there,  why  not  elsewhere  ?  Perhaps  I  had  helped 
Jourdan  Coupe-tete  at  Lyons,  and  been  king  of  the  Munster 
Anabaptists — why  not  1  What  matter  1  When  would  this 
eternity  of  wigs,  and  bonnets,  and  glaring  windows,  and  ear- 
grinding  prate  and  jargon,  as  of  a  diabolic  universe  of  street- 
organs,  end — end — end — and  I  get  quietly  hanged,  and  done 
with  it  all  forever  ? 

Oh,  the  horrible  length  of  that  day  I  It  seemed  to  me  as 
if  I  had  been  always  on  my  trial,  ever  since  I  was  born.  I 
wondered  at  times  how  many  years  ago  it  had  all  begun.  I 
felt  what  a  far  stronger  and  more  single-hearted  patriot  than 
I,  poor  Somerville,  says  of  himself  under  the  torture  of  the 
sergeant's  cat,  in  a  passage,  whose  horrible  simplicity  and  un- 
conscious pathos  have  haunted  me  ever  since  I  read  it ;  how, 
when  only  fifty  out  of  his  hundred  lashes  had  fallen  on  the 
bleeding  back,  "  The  time  sifice  they  began  teas  like  a  lo7ig 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OLT.  26i 

period  of  life  :  I  felt  as  if  I  had  lived  all  the  ii7)ie  of  my 
real  life  hi  torture,  and  tluxt  the  days  zche?i  existence  had  a 
l)lcasure  in  it  u-ere  a  dream  long,  lo?ig  gone  by." 

The  reader  may  begin  to  suspect  that  I  Mas  fast  goinT 
mad  ;  and  I  believe  I  Avas.  If  he  has  followed  ray  story  with 
a  human  heart,  he  may  excuse  me  of  any  extreme  weakness, 
if  I  did  at  moments  totter  on  the  verge  of  that  abyss. 

What  saved  me,  I  believe  now,  was  the  keen,  bright  look 
of  love  and  confidence  which  flashed  on  me  irom  Crossthwaite's 
glittering  eyes,  when  he  was  called  ibrward  as  a  witness  to 
my  character.  He  spoke  out  like  a  man,  I  hear,  that  day. 
But  the  counsel  for  the  crown  tried  to  silence  him  triumphant- 
ly, by  calling  on  him  to  confess  himself  a  Chartist ;  as  if  a 
man  must  needs  be  a  liar  and  a  villain  because  he  holds  cer- 
tain opinions  about  the  franchise  I  However,  that  was,  I 
heard,  the  general  opinion  of  the  court.  And  then  Crossth- 
waite  lost  his  temper,  and  called  the  queen's  counsel  a  hired 
bully,  and  so  went  down  ;  having  done,  as  I  was  told  aftei- 
ward,  no  good  to  me. 

And  then  there  followed  a  passage  of  tongue-fence  betAvccn 
Mackaye  and  some  barrister,  and  great  laughter  at  the  barris- 
ter's expense  :  and  then  I  heard  the  old  man's  voice  rise 
thin  and  clear : 

"Let  him  that  is  without  sin  amang  ye,  cast  the  first 
stane  I" 

And  as  he  went  down  he  looked  at  me — a  look  full  of  dc 
epair.  I  never  had  had  a  ray  of  hope  from  the  beginning ;  but 
now  I  began  to  think  whether  men  suffered  much  when  they 
were  hung,  and  Avhether  one  wolce  at  once  into  the  next  life, 
or  had  to  wait  till  the  body  had  returned  to  the  dust,  and 
watch  t)ie  ugly  process  of  one's  own  decay.  I  was  not  afraid 
of  death — 1  never  experienced  that  sensation.  I  am  not 
physicfilly  brave.  I  am  as  thoroughly  afraid  of  pain  as  any 
child  can  be  ;  but  that  next  Avorld  has  never  oflered  any  pros- 
pect to  me,  save  boundless  food  for  my  insatiable  curiosity. 

But  at  that  moment  my  attorney  thrust  into  my  hand  a 
little  dirty  scrap  of  paper.     "  Do  you  know  this  manl" 
I  read  it. 

'•Sir — I  wull  tell  all  trulhe.  Mr.  Lock  is  a  murdered 
man  if  he  be  hanged.     Lev  me  spek  out,  for  love  of  the  Lord. 

"  J.  Davis." 

No.     I  never  had  heard  of  him  ;  and  1  let  the  paper  fall 
M 


266  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

A  murdered  man  ?  I  had  known  that  all  alor.g.  Had 
not  the  queen's  counsel  been  trying  all  day  to  murder  me,  as 
was  their  duty,  seeing  that  they  got  their  living  thereby  1 

A  few  moments  after  a  laboring  man  was  in  the  witness- 
box  ;  and,  to  my  astonishment,  telling  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 

I  will  not  trouble  the  reader  with  his  details,  for  they  were 
simply  and  exactly  what  1  have  already  stated.  He  was  bad- 
gered, bullied,  cross-examined,  but  nothing  could  shake  him. 
With  that  dogged  honesty  and  laconic  dignity,  which  is  the 
good  side  of  the  English  peasant's  character,  he  stood  manfully 
to  his  assertion — that  I  had  done  every  thing  that  words  or 
.  actions  could  do  to  prevent  violence,  even  to  the  danger  of  my 
\  own  personal  safety.  He  swore  to  the  words  which  I  used 
when  trying  to  wrest  the  desk  I'rom  the  man  who  had  stolen 
it ;  and  when  the  queen's  counsel  asked  him  tauntingly,  who 
had  set  him  on  bringing  his  new  story  there  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  he  answered,  equally  to  the  astonishment  of  his  ques- 
tioner and  of  me. 

"  Muster  Locke  hisself " 

"What I  the  prisoner?"  almost  screamed  the  counselor, 
who  fancied,  I  suppose,  that  he  had  stumbled  on  a  confession 
of  unblushing  bribery. 

"  Yes,  he  ;  he  there.  As  he  went  up  over  hill  to  meeting 
he  met  my  two  boys  a  shep-minding  ;  and,  because  the  cutter 
was  froze,  he  stop  and  turn  the  handle  for  'em  for  a  matter 
often  minutes;  and  I  was  coming  up  over  field,  and  says  I, 
I'll  hear  what  that  chap's  got  to  say — there  can't  be  no  harm 
in  going  up  arter  the  likes  of  he  ;  for,  says  I  to  myself,  a  man 
can't  have  got  any  great  wickedness  a  plotting  in  he's  head, 
.  when  he'll  stop  a  ten  minutes  to  help  two  boys  as  he  never 
sot  eyes  on  afore  in  his  life  ;  and  I  think  their  honors  '11  say 
the  same." 

Whether  my  reader  will  agree  or  not  with  the  worthy  fel- 
low, my  counsel,  I  need  not  say,  did,  and  made  full  use  of  his 
hint..  All  the  previous  evidence  was  now  discovered  to  have 
corroborated  the  last  witness,  except  where  it  had  been  no- 
\  toriously  overthrown.  I  was  extolled  as  a  miracle  of  calm 
benevolence ;  and  black  became  gray,  and  gray  became  spot- 
less white,  and  tlie  Avhole  feeling  of  the  court  seemed  changed 
I  in  my  favor ;  till  the  little  attorney  popped  up  his  head  and 
whispered  to  me  : 
"  By  George  I  that  last  witness  has  saved  yi/ur  life." 
To  which  I  answered  "Very  wef" — and  turned  stiipull) 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  267 

back  upon  that  nightmare  thought — was  Lilliau  in  the 
court  ?  • 

At  last  a  voice,  the  judge's,  I  beheve,  for  it  was  grave, 
gentle,  almost  compassionate,  asked  us  one  by  one  whether 
we  had  any  thing  to  say  in  our  own  defense.  I  recollect  an 
indistinct  murmur  from  one  after  another  of  the  poor  semi- 
brutes  on  my  left ;  and  then  my  attorney,  looking  up  to  me, 
made  me  aware  that  I  was  expected  to  speak.  On  the  mo- 
ment, somehow,  my  whole  courage  returned  to  me.  I  felt 
that  I  must  unburden  my  heart,  now  or  never.  With  a  sud- 
den efibrt  I  roused  myself,  and  looking  lixedly  and  proudly  at 
the  reverend  face  opposite,  began  : 

"  The  utmost  ofiijnse  which  has  been  proved  against  me  is 
a  few  bold  words,  producing  consequences  as  unexpected  as 
illogical.  If  the  stupid  ferocity  with  which  my  words  were 
misunderstood,  as  by  a  horde  of  savages,  rather  than  English- 
men ;  if  the  moral  and  physical  condition  of  these  prisoners 
at  my  side;  of  those  witnesses  who  have  borne  testimony 
ar^ainst  me,  miserable  white  slaves,  miscalled  free  laborers  ; 
ay,  if  a  single  walk  through  the  farms  and  cottages  on  which 
this  mischief  was  bred,  alFords  no  excuse  for  oiio  indignant 
sentence — " 

There  she  was  I  There  she  had  been  all  the  time — righ* 
opposite  to  me,  close  to  the  judge — cold,  bright,  curious  — 
smilino-  !  And  as  our  eyes  met,  she  turned  away,  and  whis- 
pered gayly  something  to  a  young  man  who  sat  beside  her. 

Every  drop  of  blood  in  my  body  rushed  into  my  forehead  ;  / 
the  court,  the  windows,  and  the  faces,  whirled  round  and  /^ 
round,  and  1  fell  senseless  on  the  floor  of  the  dock.  /■' 

1  next  recollect  some  room  or  other  in  the  jail,  Mackayc 
with  both  my  hands  in  his ;  and  the  rough  kindly  voice  of 
the  jailer  congratulating  me  on  having  "  only  got  three  years." 

"But  you  didn't  show  half  a  good  pluck,"  said  some  one.. 
"  There's  'two  on  'em  transported,  took  it  as  bold  as  brass, 
and  thanked  the  judge  for  getting  'em  out  o'  this  starving 
place  '  i'ree  gracious  tor  nothing,'  says  they." 

"Ah  I"  quoth  the  little  attorney,  rubbing  his  hands,  "you 

should  have  seen and after  the  row  in  '42  !     They 

were  the  boys  for  the  Bull  Ring  I  Gave  a  barrister  as  good 
as  he  brought,  eh,  Mr.  Mackaye  1  My  small  services,  you 
remember,  were  of  no  use — really  no  use  at  all — quite  asham- 
ed to  send  in  my  little  account.     Managed  the  case  them- 


2fi3  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

selves,  like  two  patriotic  parties  as  they  were,  with  a  degree 
oi'lbrensic  acuteness,  inspired  Ly  tfae  consciousness  of  a  noble 
cause — Ahem  !  You  rennember,  friend  M.  ?  Grand  tri- 
umphs those,  eh  ?" 

"  Ay,"  said  Sandy,  "  I  mind  them  unco  weel — they  cost 
me  a'  my  few  savings,  mair  by  token  ;  an'  mony  a  braw  fal- 
low paid  for  ither  folks'  sins  that  tide.  But  my  puir  laddie 
here's  no  made  o'  that  stuff'.  He's  ower  thin-skinned  for  a 
patriot." 

"  Ah,  well — this  little  taste  of  British  justice  will  thicken, 
his  hide  for  him,  eh?"  and  the  attorney  chuckled  and  wink- 
ed. "  He'll  come  out  again  as  tough  as  a  bull-dog,  and  as 
surly  too.     Eh,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?  eh  ?" 

"  'Deed,  then,  I'm  unco  sair  afeard  that  your  opeenion  is 
no  a'thegither  that  improbable,"  answered  Sandy,  with  a 
Irawl  of  unusual  solemnity. 

•  *  *  • 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

PRISON  THOUGHTS 

I  WAS  alone  in  my  cell. 

Three  years' imprisonment  I  Thirty-six  months!  one  thou 
Band  and  ninety-five  days — and  twenty- four  whole  hours  in 
each  of  them  I  Well — I  should  sleep  half  the  time  :  one- 
third  at  least.  Perhaps  I  should  not  be  able  to  sleep  I  To 
lie  awake,  and  think — there  I  The  thought  was  horrible — it 
was  all  horrible.  To  have  three  whole  years  cut  out  of  my 
life,  instead  of  having-  before  me,  as  I  had  always  as  yet  had, 
a  mysterious  Eldorado  of  new  schemes  and  hopes,  possible 
developments,  possible  triumphs,  possible  bliss — to  have  noth- 
ing before  me  but  blank  and  stagnation,  dead  loss  and  waste : 
and  then  to  go  out  again,  and  start  once  more  where  I  had 
left  ofT  yesterday  I 

It  should  not  be  I  I  would  not  lose  these  years  I  I  would 
show  myself  a  man  ;  they  should  feel  my  strength  just  when 
they  fancied  they  had  crushed  me  utterly  !  They  might  bury 
me,  but  I  should  rise  again  I  I  should  rise  again  more  glori- 
ous, perhaps  to  be  henceforth  immortal,  and  live  upon  the 
lips  of  men.  I  would  educate  myself;  I  would  read — what 
would  I  not  read  ?  These  three  years  should  be  a  time  of 
sacred  retirement  and  contemplation,  as  of  Thehaid  Anchor- 
ite, or  Mahomet  in  his  Arabian  cave.  I  would  write  pam- 
phlets that  should  thunder  through  the  land,  and  make  tyrants 
tremble  on  their  thrones  I  All  England — at  least  all  crushed 
and  suffering  hearts,  should  bi'eak  forth  at  my  fiery  words  into 
one  roar  of  indignant  sympathy.  No  —  I  would  write  a  ' 
poem  ;  I  would  concentrate  all  my  experience,  my  aspirations, 
all  the  hopes  and  wrongs  and  sorrows  of  the  poor,  into  one 
garland  of  thorns — one  immortal  epic  of  sufiering.  What 
should  I  call  it?  And  I  set  to  work  deliberately — sucli  a 
thing  is  man — to  think  of  a  title. 

I  looked  up,  and  my  eye  caught  the  close  bars  of  the  little 
window;  and  then  came  over  me,  for  the  first  time,  the  full 
meaning  of  that  word — Prison  ;  that  word  which  the  rich  use 
so  lightly,  knowing  well  that  there  is  no  chance,  in  these  days, 
of  their  ever  finding  themselves  in  one  ;  for  the  higher  classes 
never  break  the  laws — seeing  that  they  have  made  them  to 
fit  themselves.     Ay,  I  was  in  prison.     I  could  not  go  out  or 


270  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

come  in  at  will.  I  was  watched,  commanded  at  every  turn. 
1  was  a  brute  animal,  a  puppet,  a  doll,  that  children  put 
T.way  in  a  cupboard,  and  there  it  lies.  And  yet  my  whole 
soul  was  as  wide,  fierce,  rovlnjr,  struppling,  as  ever.  Horrible 
contradiction  I  The  dreadful  sense  of  hel])le3sness,  the  crush- 
ing weight  of  necessity,  seemed  to  choke  me.  The  smooth 
white  walls,  the  smooth  white  ceiling,  seemed  squeezing  in 
closer  and  closer  on  me,  and  yet  dilating  into  vast  inane  in- 
finities, just  as  the  merest  knot  of  mould  Avill  transform  itself, 
as  one  watches  it,  and  nothing  else,  into  enormous  clifls,  long 
slopes  of  moor,  and  spurs  of  mountain-range.  Oh,  those 
smooth  white  walls  and  ceiling  I  If  there  had  but  been  a 
print — a  stain  of  dirt — a  cobweb,  to  fleck  their  unbroken 
ghastliness  I  They  stared  at  me,  like  grim,  impassive,  feature- 
less, formless  fiends  ;  all  the  more  dreadful  for  their  sleek 
hypocritic  cleanliness — purity  as  of  a  saint-inquisitor  watch- 
ing with  spotless  conscience  the  victim  on  the  rack.  They 
choked  me — I  gasped  for  breath,  stretched  out  my  arms, 
rolled  shrieking  on  the  floor — the  narrowed  checkered  glimpse 
of  free  blue  sky,  seen  through  the  window,  seemed  to  fade 
dimmer  and  dimmer,  farther  and  farther  off.  I  sprang  up  as 
if  to  follow  it — rushed  to  the  bars,  shook  and  wrenched  at 
them  with  my  thin,  puny  arms — and  stood  spell-bound,  as  I 
caught  sight  of  the  cathedral  towers,  standing  out  in  grand 
repose  against  the  horizontal  fiery  bars  of  sunset,  like  great 
angels  at  the  gates  of  Paradise,  watching  in  stately  sorrow  all 
the  wailing  and  the  wrong  below.  And  beneath,  beneath — 
the  well-known  roofs — Lillian's  home,  and  ;iil  its  proud  and 
happy  memories  I  It  was  but  a  corner  ol'  a  gable,  a  scrap  of 
garden,  that  I  could  see  beyond  intervening  roofs  and  trees — 
but  could  I  mistake  them  ?  There  was  the  very  cedar-tree  ; 
I  knew  its  dark  pyramid  but  too  well  I  There  I  had  walked  by 
her  ;  there,  just  behind  that  envious  group  of  chestnuts,  she 
was  now.  The  light  was  fading  ;  it  must  be  six  o'clock  ;  she 
must  be  in  her  room  now,  dressing  herself  for  dinner,  looking 
so  beautiful  I  And  as  I  gazed,  and  gazed,  all  the  intervening 
objects  became  transparent,  and  vanished  before  the  intens- 
ity of  my  imagination.  Were  my  poems  in  her  rooms  still? 
Perhaps  she  had  thrown  them  away — the  condemned  rioter's 
poems  I  Was  she  thinking  of  me  ?  Yes — with  horror  and 
contempt.  Well,  at  least  she  was  thinking  of  me.  And  she 
would  understand  me  at  last — she  must.  Some  day  she 
would  know  all  I  had  borne  for  love  of  her — the  depth,  the 
•night,  the  purify  of  my  adoralic/i.      She  would  see  the  world 


ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  271 

honoring  me,  in  the  day  of  my  triumph,  when  I  was  appre- 
ciated at  last ;  when  I  stood  before  the  eyes  of  admiring  men, 
a  people's  singer,  a  king  of  human  spirits,  great  with  the  rank 
which  genius  irivcs,  then  she  would  find  out  what  a  man  had 
loved  her  ;  then  she  would  know  the  honor,  the  privilege  of  a 
poet's  worship. 

— ]3ut  that  trial  scene  I 

Aj- — that  trial  scene.  That  cold,  unmoved  smile  I — when 
she  knew  me,  must  have  known  me,  not  to  be  the  wretch 
which  those  hired  slanderers  had  called  me.  If  she  had  cared 
for  me — if  she  had  a  woman's  heart  in  her  at  all,  any  pity, 
any  justice,  would  she  not  have  spoken  ?  Would  she  not 
have  called  on  others  to  speak,  and  clear  me  of  the  calumny  ? 
Nonsense  I  Impossible  I  She — so  frail,  tender,  retiring — how 
could  she  speak  ]  ITow  did  I  know  that  she  had  not  felt  for 
me  ?  It  was  woman's  nature — duty,  to  conceal  her  feelings; 
perhaps  that  after  all  was  the  true  explanation  of  that  smile 
Perhaps,  too,  she  might  have  spoken — might  be  even  now 
pleading  for  me  in  secret ;  not  that  I  wished  to  be  pardoned — 
not  I — but  it  would  be  so  delicious  to  have  her,  her,  pleading 
for  me  I  Perhaps — perhaps  I  might  hear  of  her — from  her  I 
Surely  she  could  not  leave  me  here  so  close,  without  some 
token  I  And  I  actually  listened,  I  know  not  how  long,  ex- 
pecting the  door  to  open,  and  a  message  to  arrive  :  till,  with 
my  eyes  riveted  on  that  bit  of  gable,  and  my  ears  listening 
behind  me  like  a  hare's  in  her  form,  to  catch  every  sound  in 
the  Avard  outside,  I  fell  fast  asleep,  and  forgot  all  in  the 
heavy  dreamless  torpor  of  utter  mental  and  bodily  exhaustion. 
I  was  awakened  by  the  opening  of  my  cell  door,  and  the 
appearance  of  the  turnkey. 

"  Well,  young  man,  all  right  again  ?  You've  had  a  long 
nap ;  and  no  wonder,  you've  had  a  hard  time  of  it  lately  ; 
and  a  good  lesson  to  you,  too." 

"How  long  have  I  slept  ?  I  do  not  recollect  going  to  bed. 
And  how  came  I  to  lie  down  without  undressing  V 

"I  found  you  at  lock-up  hours,  asleep  there,  kneeling  on  the 
chair,  with  your  head  on  the  window-sill ;  and  a  mercy  you 
hadn't  tumbled  off  and  broke  your  back.  Now,  look  here. 
You  seems  a  civil  sort  of  chap  ;  and  civil  gets  as  civil  gives 
with  me.  Only  don't  you  talk  no  politics.  They  ain't  no 
pood  to  nobody,  except  the  big  'uns,  wot  gets  their  living 
thereby  ;  and  I  should  think  you'd  had  dose  enough  on  'era 
to  last  for  a  month  of  Sundays.  So  just  get  yourself  tidy, 
there's  a  lad,  and  come  along  with  me  to  chapel." 


272  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

I  obeyed  him,  in  that  and  other  things ;  and  I  never  receii  J 
from  him,  or,  indeed,  from  any  one  else  there,  aught  but  kiikd- 
ness.  I  have  no  complaint  to  make — but  prison  is  prison. 
As  for  talking  politics,  I  never,  during  those  three  years,  ex- 
changed as  many  sentences  with  any  of  my  fellovi^-prisoners. 
What  had  I  to  say  to  them  ?  Poachers  and  petty  thieves — 
the  scum  of  misery,  ignorance,  and  rascality  throughout  the 
countiy.  If  my  heart  yearned  toward  them  at  times,  it  was 
generally  shut  close  by  the  exclusive  pride  of  superior  intellect 
and  knowledge.  I  considered  it,  as  it  was,  a  degradation  to 
be  classed  with  such  ;  never  asking  myself  how  far  I  had 
brought  that  degradation  on  myself :  and  I  loved  to  show  my 
sense  of  injustice  by  walking,  moody  and  silent,  up  and  down 
a  lonely  corner  of  the  yard  ;  and  at  last  contrived,  under  the 
plea  of  ill-health  (and,  truly,  I  never  was  ten  minutes  without 
coughing),  to  confine  myself  entirely  to  my  cell,  and  escape 
altogether  the  company  of  a  class  whom  I  despised,  almost 
hated,  as  my  betrayers,  before  whom  I  had  cast  away  my 
pearls — questionable  though  they  were,  according  to  Mackaye. 
Oh  !  there  is,  in  the  intellectual  workman's  heart,  as  in  all 
others,  the  root  of  Pharisaism — the  lust  after  self-glorifymg 
superiority,  on  the  ground  of  "  genius."  We  too  are  men  ; 
i'rail,  selfish,  proud  as  others.  The  days  are  past,  thank  God, 
when  the  "  gentlemen  button  makers"  used  to  insist  on  a 
separate  tap-room  from  the  mere  "  button-makers,"  on  the 
ground  of  earning  a  few  moi'e  shillings  per  week.  But  we 
are  not  yet  thorough  democrats,  my  brothers ;  we  do  not  yet 
utterly  believe  our  own  loud  doctrine  of  equality ;  nor  shall 
we  till —  But  I  must  not  anticipate  the  stages  of  my  own 
experience. 

I  complain  of  no  one,  again  I  say — neither  of  judge,  jury, 
jailers,  or  chaplain.  True,  imprisonment  was  the  worst  pos- 
sible remedy  ibr  my  disease  that  could  have  been  devised,  if, 
as  the  new  doctrine  is,  punishments  are  inflicted  only  to 
reform  the  criminal.  What  could  prison  do  for  me,  bu'i 
'embitter  and  confirm  all  my  prejudices?  But  I  do  not  see 
what  else  they  could  have  done  with  me  while  law  is  what 
it  is,  and  perhaps  ever  will  be  ;  dealing  with  the  overt  acta 
of  the  poor,  and  never  touching  the  subtler  and  more  spiritual 
iniquities  of  the  rich  respectable.  When  shall  we  see  a  nation 
ruled,  not  by  the  law,  but  by  the  Gospel ;  not  in  the  lett/T 
which  kills,  but  in  the  spirit  which  is  love,  forgiveness;  lif«'  ^ 
When  ?  God  knows  I     And  God  does  know. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  rOET.  273 

But  I  did  work,  during  those  three  years,  lor  mouths  at  a 
time,  steadily  and  severely;  and,  with  little  profit,  alas!  to 
my  temper  of  mind.  I  gorged  ray  intellect,  for  I  could  do 
nothing  else.  The  political  questions  which  I  longed  to  solve  i 
in  some  way  or  other,  were  tabooed  by  the  well  meaning  | 
chaplain,  lie  even  forbade  me  a  standard  English  work  ou 
political  economy,  which  I  had  written  to  Mackaye  to  borrow 
lor  me  ;  he  was  not  so  careful,  it  will  be  seen  hereafter,  with 
foreign  books.  He  meant,  of  course,  to  keep  my  mind  fronr. 
what  he  considered  at  once  useless  and  polluting ;  but  the 
only  effect  of  his  method  was,  that  all  the  doubts  and  ques- 
tions remained,  rankling  and  fierce,  imperiously  demanding 
my  attention,  and  had  to  be  solved  by  my  own  moody  and 
soured  meditations,  warped  and  colored  by  the  strong  sense 
of  universal  wrong. 

Then  he  deluged  me  with  tracts,  weak  and  well-meaning, 
which  informed  me  that  "  Christians,"  being  "  not  of  this 
world,"  had  nothing  to  do  with  politics  ;  and  preached  to  me 
the  divine  right  of  kings,  passive  obedience  to  the  powers — or 
impotences — that  be,  &c.,  &c.,  with  such  success  as  may 
be  imagined.  I  opened  them  each,  read  a  few  sentences,  and 
laid  them  by.  "  They  were  written  by  good  men,  no  doubt: 
but  men  who  had  an  interest  in  keeping  up  the  present 
•  system  ;"  at  all  events,  by  men  who  knew  nothing  of  my 
temptations,  my  creed,  my  unbelief;  who  saw  all  heaven  and 
earth  from  a  station  antipodal  1o  my  own  :  I  had  simply 
nothing  to  do  with  them. 

And  yet,  excellent  man  !  pious,  benignant,  compassionate! 
God  forbid  that  I  should,  in  writing  these  words,  allow  myself 
a  desire  so  base  as  that  of  dis])araging  thee  I  However  thy 
words  failed  of  their  purpose,  that  l)right,  gentle,  earnest  face 
never  appeared  without  bringing  balm  to  the  wounded  spirit. 
Hadst  thou  not  recalled  me  to  humanity,  those  three  years 
would  have  made  a  savage  and  a  madman  of  me.  May  God 
reward  thee  hereafter  I  Thou  hast  thy  reward  on  earth  in 
the  gratitude  of  many  a  broken  heart  bound  up,  of  drunkards 
sobered,  thieves  reclaimed,  and  outcasts  taught  to  look  for  a 
paternal  home  denied  them  here  on  earth  I  While  such  thy 
deeds,  what  matter  thine  opinions  ? 

But  alas  I  (for  the  truth  must  be  told,  as  a  warning  to 
those  Avho  have  to  face  the  educated  working-men),  his  opin- 
ions did  matter  to  himself  The  good  man  labored  under  the 
delusion,  common  enough,  of  choosing  his  favorite  weapons 
from   liis    weakest  faculty  ;    and   the   very  inferiority  of  his 

M* 


L'7  i        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

intellect  prevented  Llm  from  seeing  where  his  true  strength 
lay.  He  would  argue  ;  lie  would  try  and  convert  me  from 
skepticism  by  what  seemed  to  him  reasoning,  the  common  fig- 
ure of  which  was,  Avhat  logicians,  I  believe,  call  begging  the 
question  ;  and  the  common  method  what  they  call  ignoratio 
elenchi — shooting  at  pigeons,  while  crows  are  the  game  desired. 
He  always  started  by  demanding  my  assent  to  the  very  ques- 
tion which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  my  doubts.  He  would 
wrangle  and  v.-restle  blindly  up  and  down,  with  tears  of 
earnestness  in  his  eyes,  till  he  had  lost  his  temper,  as  far  as 
was  possible  for  one  so  angel-guarded  as  he  seemed  to  be  ; 
and  then,  when  he  found  himself  confused,  contradicting  his 
own  words,  making  concessions  at  which  he  shuddered,  for 
the  sake  of  gaining  from  me  assents  which  he  found  out  the 
next  moment  I  understood  in  quite  a  difierent  sense  from  his, 
he  would  suddenly  shift  his  ground,  and  try  to  knock  me  down 
authoritatively  with  a  single  text  of  Scripture  ;  when  all  the 
while  I  wanted  proof  that  Scripture  had  any  authority  at  all. 

He  carefully  confined  himself,  too,  throughout,  to  the  dog- 
matic phraseology  of  the  pulpit;  while  I  either  did  not  under- 
stand, or  required  justification  for  the  strange,  far-fetched, 
technical  meanings,  Avhich  he  attached  to  his  expressions.  If 
he  would  only  have  talked  English  I  if  clergymen  would  only 
preach  in  English  !  and  then  they  wonder  that  their  sermons 
have  no  effect!  Their  notion  seems  to  be,  as  my  good  chap- 
lain's was,  that  the  teacher  is  not  to  condescend  to  the 
scholar,  much  less  to  become  all  things  to  all  men,  if  by  any 
means  he  may  save  some  ;  but  that  he  has  a  right  to  demand 
that  the  scholar  shall  ascend  to  him  before  he  is  taught ;  that 
he  shall  raise  himself  up  of  his  own  strength  into  the  teacher's 
region  of  thought  as  well  as  feeling;  to  do  for  himself,  in  short 
under  penalty  of  being  called  an  unbeliever,  just  what  the 
teacher  professes  to  do  for  him. 

At  last,  he  seemed  dimly  to  discover  that  I  could  not  ac- 
quiesce in  his  conclusions,  while  I  denied  his  premises ;  and  so 
he  lent  me,  in  an  ill-starred  moment,  "  Paley's  Evidences," 
and  some  tracts  of  the  last  generation  against  Deism.  I  read 
lhem,  and  remained,  as  hundreds  more  have  done,  just  where 
1.  was  before. 

"  Was  Paley,"  I  asked,  "  a  really  good  and  pious  man  ?"' 

The  really  good  and  pious  man  hemmed  and  hawed. 

•'  Because,  if  he  was  not,  I  can't  trust  a  page  of  his  special 
pleading,  let  it  look  as  q  ever  as  the  whole  Old  Bailey  in 
jrio." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        275 

Besides,  I  never  denied  the  existence  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
»r  his  apostles.  I  doubted  the  myths  and  doctrines,  which  I 
believed  to  have  been  gradually  built  up  round  the  true  story. 
The  fact  was,  he  was,  like  most  of  his  class,  "  attacking  ex- 
tinct Satans,"  fighting  manfully  against  Voltaire,  Volney,  and 
Tom  Paine  ;  wli.le  1  was  fighting  lor  Strauss,  Ilennell,  and 
Emerson.  And,  at  last, he  gave  me  up  for  some  weeks  as  a 
hopeless  infidel,  without  ever  having  touched  the  points  on 
which  I  disbelieved.  He  had  never  read  Strauss — hardly 
even  heard  of  him  ;  and,  till  clergymen  make  up  their  minds 
to  do  that,  and  to  answer  Strauss  also,  they  will  as  he  did, 
leave  the  heretic  artisan  just  where  they  found  him. 

The  bad  eflect  Avhich  all  this  had  upon  my  mind  may 
easily  bo  conceived.  I  felt  myself  his  intellectual  superior. 
I  tripped  him  up,  played  with  him,  made  him  expose  his 
weaknesses,  till  I  really  began  to  despise  him  JVIay  Heaven 
forgive  me  for  it  I  But  it  was  not  till  long  afterward  that  I 
began,  on  looking  back,  to  see  how  worthless  was  any  superior 
cleverness  of  mine  before  his  superior  moral  and  spiritual 
excellence.  That  was  just  what  he  would  not  let  me  see 
at  the  time.  .  I  was  worshiping  intellect,  mere  intellect ;  and 
thence  arose  my  doubts ;  and  he  tried  to  conquer  them  by 
exciting  the  very  faculty  which  had  begotten  them.  When 
M'ill  the  clergy  learn  that  their  strength  is  in  action,  and  not 
in  argument '?  If  they  are  to  re-convert  the  masses,  it  must 
be  by  noble  deeds,  as  Carlyle  says;  "not  by  noisy,  theoretic 
laudation  of  a  Church,  but  by  silent  practical  demonstration 
oi  the  Church." 

But,  the  reader  may  ask,  Where  was  your  Bible  all  this 
time  ? 

Yes — there  was  a'Bible  in  my  cell — and  the  chaplain  reau 
to  me,  both  privately  and  in  chapel,  such  portions  of  it  as  he 
thought  suited  my  case,  or  rather  his  utterly  mistaken  view 
thereof.  But  to  tell  the  truth,  I  cared  not  to  read  or  listen. 
Was  it  not  the  book  of  the  aristocrats — of  kings  and  priests,  pas- 
sive obedience,  and  the  slavery  of  the  intellect]  Had  I  been 
.brown  under  the  influence  of  the  more  educated  Independents 
ji  fofmer  years,  I  might  have  thought  dillerently.  They,  at 
J.-ast,  have  contrived,  with  what  logical  consistence,  I  know 
not,  to  reconcile  orthodox  Christianity  with  unQinching 
democratic  opinions.  But  such  was  not  my  lot.  My 
mother,  as  I  said  iu  my  first  chapter,  had  become  a  Baptist; 
because  she  believed  that  sect,  and  as  I  think  riuhtlv.  to  bo 


276  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

the  only  oive  which  logically  and  consistently  carries  out  the 
Calvinistic  theory  ;  and  now  I  looked  back  upon  her  delight 
in  Gideon  and  Barak,  Samson  and  Jehu,  only  as  the  mystic 
application  of  rare  exceptions  to  the  fanaticism  of  a  chosen 
few — the  elect — the  saints,  who,  as  the  fifth-monarchy  men 
held,  were  one  day  lo  rule  the  world  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Ani 
so  I  fell — willingly,  alas  I  into  the  vulgar  belief  about  the 
politics  of  Scripture,  common  alike — strange  unanimity! — to 
Infidel  and  Churchman.  The  great  idea  that  tlie  Bible  is 
the  history  of  mankind's  deliverance  from  all  tyranny,  out- 
ward as  well  as  inward  ;  of  the  Jcm's,  as  the  one  free  con- 
stitutional people  among  a  world  of  slaves  and  tyrants  ;  of 
their  ruin,  as  the  righteous  fruit  of  a  voluntary  return  to 
despotism  ;  of  the  New  Testament,  as  the  good  news  that 
freedom,  brotherhood,  and  equality,  once  confined  only  to 
Judea  and  to  Greece,  and  dimly  seen  even  there,  was  hence- 
forth to  be  the  right  of  all  mankind,  the  law  of  all  society — 
who  was  there  to  tell  me  that  ?  Who  is  there  now  to  go 
forth  and  tell  it  to  the  millions  who  have  sufiered,  and  doubt- 
ed, and  despaired  like  me,  and  turn  the  hearts  of  the  dis- 
obedient to  the  wisdom  of  the  just,  before  the  great  and  ter- 
rible day  of  the  Lord  come  ?  Again  I  ask — who  will  go  forth 
and  preach  that  Gospel,  and  save  his  native  land? 

But,  as  I  said  belbre,  I  read,  and  steadily.  In  the  first 
place,  I,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  studied  Shakspeare 
throughout ;  and  found  out  now  the  treasure  which  I  had 
overlooked.  I  assure  my  readers  I  am  not  going  to  give  a 
lecture  on  him  here,  as  1  was  minded  to  have  done.  Only, 
as  I  am  asking  questions,  who  will  write  us  a  "People's  Com- 
mentary on  Shakspeare  ?" 

Then  I  v>'acled,  making  copious  notes  and  extracts,  through 
the  whole  of  Hume,  and  Ilallam's  "Middle  Ages"  and  "Con- 
stitutional History,"  and  found  them  barren  to  my  soul.  When 
(to  ask  a  third  and  last  question)  will  some  man,  of  the  spirit 
of  Carlyle — one  who  is  not  ashamed  to  acknowledge  the  in- 
tervention of  a  God,  a  Providence,  even  of  a  devil,  in  the 
afiairs  of  men — arise,  and  write  a  "  People's  History  of  En- 
gland?" 

Then  1  labored  long  months  at  learning  French,  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  reading  Frencli  political  economy  after  my 
liberation.  But  at  last  in  my  impatience,  I  wrote  to  Sandy 
to  send  me  Proudhon  and  Louis  Blanc,  on  the  chance  of  their 
passing  the  good  chaplain's  censorship — and  behold,  they  pass- 
ed I     lie  had  never  heard  their  names  I      He  was,  I  suspect 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET.  2/7 

Utterly  ignorant  of  French,  and  afraid  of  exposing  his  iguoranco 
by  venturing  to  criticise.  As  it  was,  I  was  allowed  peaceable 
possession  of  them  till  within  a  few  months  of  my  liberation, 
with  such  consequences  as  may  be  imagined  ;  and  then,  to 
his  unfeigned  terror  and  horror,  he  discovered,  in  some  period- 
ical, that  he  had  been  leaving  in  my  hands  books  which  ad- 
vocated "  the  destruction  of  property,"  and  therefore,  in  his 
eyes,  of  all  which  is  moral  or  sacred  in  earth  and  heaven  I  I 
gave  them  up  without  a  struggle,  so  really  painful  was  the 
good  soul's  concern,  and  the  reproaches  which  he  heaped,  not 
on  me — he  never  reproached  me  in  his  life — but  on  himself 
for  having  so  neglected  his  duty. 

Then  I  read  hard  for  a  few  months  at  physical  science — at 
Zoology  and  Botany,  and  threw  it  aside  again  in  bitterness  of 
heart.  It  was  too  bitter  to  be  tantalized  with  the  description 
of  Nature's  wondrous  forms,  and  I  there  a  prisoner,  between 
those  four  white  walls  I 

Then  I  set  to  Avork  to  write  an  autobiography — at  least  in 
^•ommit  to  paper  in  regular  order  the  most  striking  incidents 
and  conversations  which  T  could  recollect,  and  which  I  had 
noted  down,  as  they  occurred,  in  my  diary.  From  that  source 
I  have  drawn  nearly  the  whole  of  my  history  up  to  this  point. 
For  the  rest  I  must  trust  to  memory — and,  indeed,  the  strange 
deeds  and  sufferings,  and  yet  stranger  revelations,  of  the  lust 
few  months,  have  branded  themselves  deep  enough  upon  my 
brain.  I  need  not  hope,  or  fear,  that  aught  of  them  should 
slip  my  memory. 

So  went  the  weary  time.  Week  after  week,  month  after 
month,  summer  after  summer,  I  scored  the  days  off,  like  a 
lonely  schoolboy,  on  the  pages  of  a  calendar  ;  and  day  by  day 
I  went  to  my  window,  and  knelt  there,  gazing  at  the  gable 
and  the  cedar-tree.  That  was  my  only  recreation.  Some- 
times, at  first,  my  eyes  used  to  wander  over  the  wide  prospect 
of  rich  lowlands,  and  farms,  and  hamlets,  and  I  used  to  amuse 
myself  with  conjectures  about  the  people  who  lived  in  them, 
and  walked  where  they  liked  on  God's  earth  :  but  soon  I 
hated  to  look  at  the  country  ;  its  perpetual  change  and  pro- 
gress mocked  the  dreary  sameness  of  my  dungeon.  It  was 
bitter,  maddening,  to  see  the  gray  boughs  grow  green  with 
leaves,  and  the  green  fade  to  autumnal  yellow,  and  the  gray 
boughs  reappear  again,  and  I  still  there  I  The  dark,  sleeping 
fallows  bloomed  with  emerald  blades  of  corn,  and  then  the 
corn  o-iew  deej)  and  crisp,  and  blackened  before  the  summer 


273  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

breeze,  in  "  waves  of  shadow,"  as  Mr.  Tennyson  says  in  one 
of  his  most  exquisite  lyrics ;  and  then  the  fields  grew  white  to 
harvest  day  by  day,  and  I  saw  the  rows  of  sheaves  rise  one 
by  one,  and  the  carts  crawling  homeward  under  their  load.  I 
could  almost  hear  the  merry  voices  of  the  children  round  them 
— children  that  could  go  into  the  woods,  and  pick  wild  flowers, 
and  I  still  there  I  No — I  would  look  at  nothing  but  the  gable, 
and  the  cedar-tree,  and  the  tall  cathedral  towers  ;  there  was 
no  change  in  them — they  did  not  laugh  at  me. 

But  she  who  lived  beneath  them"?  Months  and  seasons 
crawled  along,  and  yet  no  sign  or  hint  of  her  I  I  was  forgot- 
ten, Ibrsaken  1  And  yet  I  gazed,  and  gazed.  I  could  not 
forget  her ;  I  could  not  forget  what  she  had  been  to  me. 
Eden  was  still  there,  though  I  was  shut  out  from  it  forever  : 
and  so,  like  a  widower  over  the  grave  of  her  he  loves,  morn- 
ing and  evening  I  watched  the  gable  and  the  cedar-tree. 

And  my  cousin  ?  Ah,  that  was  the  thought,  the  only 
thought,  which  made  my  life  intolerable  I  What  might  he 
not  be  doing  in  the  mean  time  ]  I  knew  his  purpose — 1  knew 
his  power.  True,  I  had  never  seen  a  hint,  a  glancj,  which 
could  have  given  him  hope  ;  but  he  had  three  whole  years  to 
win  her  in — three  whole  years,  and  I  fettered,  helpless,  absent ! 
"  Fool  I  could  I  have  won  her  if  I  had  been  free  1  At  least, 
I  would  have  tried  :  we  would  have  fought  it  fairly  out,  on 
even  ground  ;  we  would  have  seen  which  was  the  strongest, 
respectability  and  cunning,  or  the  simplicity  of  genius.  But 
now  I" — And  I  tore  at  the  bars  of  the  window,  and  threw 
myself  on  the  floor  of  mv  cell,  and  longed  to  die. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

THE  NEW  CHURCH. 

In  a  poor  subuib  of  the  city,  which  I  could  see  well  enough 
from  my  little  window,  a  new  Gothic  church  was  building. 
When  I  first  took  up  my  abode  in  the  cell,  it  was  just  begun 
— the  walls  had  hardly  risen  above  the  neighboring  sheds  and 
garden-fences.  But  month  after  month  I  had  Avatched  it 
growing  ;  I  had  seen  one  window  after  another  filled  with 
tracery,  one  buttress  after  another  finished  ofi'with  its  carved 
pinnacle  ;  then  I  had  watched  the  skeleton  of  the  roof  gradu- 
ally clothed  in  tiling  ;  and  then  the  glazing  of  the  windows — 
some  of  them  painted,  I  could  see,  from  the  iron  network 
which  was  placed  outside  them  the  same  day.  Then  the 
doors  were  put  up — were  they  going  to  finish  that  handsome 
tower  ?  No  ;  it  was  left  with  its  wooden  cap,  I  suppose  for 
further  funds.  But  the  nave,  and  the  deep  chancel  behind 
it,  were  all  finished,  and  surmounted  by  a  cross — and  beauti- 
ful enough  the  little  sanctuary  looked,  in  the  virgin-purity  of 
its  spotless  freestone.  For  eighteen  months  I  watched  it 
grow  before  my  eyes — and  I  was  still  in  my  cell  I 

And  then  there  was  a  grand  procession  of  surplices  and 
lawn  sleeves ;  and  among  them  I  fancied  I  distinguished  the 
old  dean's  stately  figure,  and  turned  my  head  away,  and  look- 
ed again,  and  fancied  I  distinguished  another  figure — it  must 
have  been  mere  imagination — the  distance  was  far  too  great 
for  me  to  identify  any  one;  but  I  could  not  get  out  of  my 
head  the  fancy — say  rather,  the  instinct — that  it  was  my 
cousin's ;  and  that  it  was  my  cousin  whom  I  saw  daily  after 
that,  coming  out  and  going  in,  when  the  bell  rang  to  morning 
and  evening  prayers — for  there  were  daily  services  there,  and 
saints'  day  services,  and  Lent  services,  and  three  services  on 
a  Sunday,  and  six  or  seven  on  Good  Friday  and  Easter-day. 
The  little  musical  bell  above  the  chancel-arch  seemed  always 
ringing  ;  and  still  that  figure  haunted  me  like  a  nightmare, 
ever  coming  in  and  going  out  about  its  priestly  calling — and 
I  still  in  my  cell  !  If  it  should  be  he  I  so  close  to  her  I  I 
shuddered  at  the  thought;  and,  just  because  it  was  so  intoler- 
able, it  clung  to  me,  and  tormented  me,  and  kept  me  awake 
at  nights,  till  I  became  utterly  unaVe  to  suidy  'piietly,  and 


280  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAiLOR  AND  POET. 

spent  hours  at  the  narrow  window,  watcliing  for  the  very  fig 
lire  which  I  loathed  to  sec. 

And  then  a  Gothic  school-house  rose  at  the  church-yard 
end,  and  troops  of  children  poured  in  and  out,  and  women 
came  daily  for  alms  :  and  when  the  frosts  came  on,  every 
morning  I  saw  a  crowd,  and  soup  carried  away  in  pitchers, 
and  clothes  and  blankets  given  away ;  the  giving  seemed 
endless,  boundless  ;  and  I  thought  of  the  times  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  "  sportula,"  when  the  poor  had  got  to  live 
upon  the  alms  of  the  rich,  more  and  more,  year  by  year — till 
they  devoured  their  own  devourers,  and  the  end  came  ;  and 
I  shuddered.  And  yet  it  was  a  pleasant  sight,  as  every  new 
church  is  to  the  healthy-minded  man,  let  his  religious  opinions 
be  what  they  may.  A  fresh  centre  of  civilization,  mercy, 
comfort  for  weary  hearts,  relief  from  frost  and  hunger;  a 
fresh  centre  of  instruction,  humanizinG:,  disciplining,  however 
meagre  in  my  eyes,  two  hundreds  of  little  savage  spirits ; 
altogether  a  pleasant  sight,  even  to  me  there  in  my  cell. 
And  I  used  to  wonder  at  the  wasted  power  of  the  Church — 
her  almost  entire  monopoly  of  the  pulpits,  the  schools,  the 
alms  of  England  ;  and  then  thank  Heaven,  somewhat  prema- 
turely, that  she  knew  and  used  so  little  her  vast  latent  pov/er 
for  the  destruction  of  liberty. 

Or  for  its  realization  ? 

Ay,  that  is  the  question  I  We  shall  not  see  it  solved — at 
least,  I  never  shall. 

But  still  that  figure  haunted  me  ;  all  through  that  winle. 
I  saw  it,  chatting  with  old  women,  patting  children's  heads, 
walking  to  the  church  with  ladies  ;  sometimes  with  a  tiny, 
tripping  figure.  I  did  not  dare  to  let  myself  fancy  who  thai 
might  be. 

December  passed,  and  January  came.  I  had  now  only  two 
months  more  before  my  deliverance.  One  day  I  seemed  to 
myself  to  have  spent  a  whole  life  in  that  narrow  room  ;  and 
the  next,  the  years  and  months  seemed  short  and  blank  as  a 
night's  sleep  on  waking  ;  and  there  was  no  salient  point  in 
all  my  memory,  since  that  last  sight  of  Lillian's  smile,  and 
the  faces  and  the  windows  whirling  round  before  me  as  I  fell. 

At  last  came  a  letter  from  Mackaye.  "  Ye  speired  for 
news  o'  your  cousin — an'  I  find  he's  a  neeber  o'  yours  ;  ca'd 
to  a  new  kirk  i'  the  city  o'  your  captivity — an'  na  stickit  miri' 
ister  he  makes,  forbye  he's  ane  o'  these  new  Puseyite  secta- 
rians, to  judge  by  your  uncle's  report.      I  met  the  auld  baillit; 


ALTON   LOCKI':,  TAILOR  AM)   I'OliT.  'J31 

bodic  on  the  street,  an'  I  was  gauii  to  pass  him  by,  but  he 
was  sae  I'u'  o'  good  news  he  could  na  but  stop  an'  ha'  a  crack 
wi'  me  on  politics  ;  for  we  ha'  helpit  thegither  in  certain 
municipal  clanjamfreics  o'  late.  An'  he  told  me  your  cousin 
wins  honor  fast,  an'  mun  surely  die  a  bishop — puir  bairn' 
An'  besides  that,  he's  gaun  be  married  the  spring.  I  dinna 
mind  the  leddy's  name ;  but  there's  tocher  wi'  lass  o'  his,  I'll 
warrant.  He's  na  laird  o'  Cockpen,  for  a  penniless  lass  wi' 
a  long  pedigree." 

As  I  sat  meditating  over  this  news — which  made  the  tor- 
ment of  suspicion  and  suspense  more  intolerable  than  ever — 
behold  a  postscript,  added  some  two  days  after. 

"  Oh  I  oh  I  Sic  news  I  gran'  news  !  news  to  malce  baith 
the  ears  o'  him  that  heareth  it  to  tingle.  God  is  God,  an'  no 
the  deevil  after  a'  I  Louis  Philippe  is  doun  I — doun,  doun, 
like  a  dog  !  an'  the  republic's  proclaimed,  an'  the  auld  villain 
here  in  England,  they  say,  a  wanderer  an'  a  beggar.  I  ha' 
sent  ye  the  paper  o'  the  day.  PS. — 73,  37,  12.  Oh,  the 
Psalms  are  lull  o't !  Never  say  the  Bible's  no  true,  mair 
I've  been  unco  faithless  mysel',  God  forgive  me  I  I  got 
grieving  to  see  the  wicked  in  sic  prosperity.  I  did  na  gang 
into  the  sanctuary  enough,  an'  therelbre  I  could  na  see  the 
end  of  these  men— how  Jtle  does  take  them  up  suddenly  after 
all,  an'  cast  them  doun  :  vanish  they  do,  perish,  an'  come  to 
a  fearful  end.  Yea,  like  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh,  .so 
shalt  thou  make  their  image  to  vanish  out  of  the  city.  Oh 
but  it's  a  day  o'  God  I  An'  yet  I'm  sair  afraid  for  thae  pui 
feckless  French.  I  ha'  na  faith,  ye  ken,  in  the  Celtic  blude 
an'  its  spirit  o'  lees.  The  Saxon  spirit  o'  covetize  is  a  grew 
some  house-fiend,  and  sae's  our  Norse  speerit  o'  shifts  an 
dodges  ;  but  the  spirit  of  lees  is  warse.  Puir  lustful  Reuben* 
that  they  are  I — unstable  as  water,  they  shall  not  excel 
Well,  well — after  all,  there  is  a  God  that  judgeth  the  earth 
an'  when  a  man  kens  that,  he's  learnt  eneugh  to  last  him  til. 
he  dies." 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 
THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL. 

A  plorious  people  vibrated  again 

The  lightning  of  tlie  nations;  Liberty 
From  heart  to  heart,  from  tower  to  tower,  o'er  France, 

Scattering  contagious  fire  into  the  sky, 
Gleamed.     My  soul  spurned  the  chains  of  its  dismay; 

And  in  the  rapid  plumes  of  song 

Clothed  itself  sublime  and  strong. 

Sublime  and  strong  ?  Alas  I  not  so.  An  outcast,  heart- 
less, faithless,  and  embittered,  I  went  forth  from  my  prison. 
But  yet  Louis  Philippe  had  fallen  I  And  as  I  whirled  back 
to  Babylon  and  want,  discontent  and  discord,  ray  heart  was 
light,  my  breath  came  thick  and  fierce.  The  incubus  of 
France  had  fallen ;  and  from  land  to  land,  like  the  beacon- 
fire  which  leapt  from  peak  to  peak  proclaiming  Troy's  down- 
fall, passed  on  the  glare  of  burning  idols,  the  crash  of  falling 
anarchies.  Was  I  mad,  sinful  ?  Both — and  yet  neither. 
Was  I  mad  and  sinful,  if  on  my  return  to  my  old  haunts, 
amid  the  grasp  of  loving  hands,  and  the  caresses  of  those  who 
called  me  in  their  honest  flattery  a  martyr  and  a  hero — what 
things,  as  Carlyle  says,  men  will  fall  down  and  worship  in 
their  extreme  need  I  was  I  mad  and  siniul,  if  daring  hopes 
arose,  and  desperate  words  were  spoken,  and  wild  eyes  read  in 
wild  eyes  the  thoughts  they  dare  not  utter?  "Liberty  has 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  we  too  will  be  free  I" 

Yes,  mad  and  sinful ;  therefore  are  we  as  we  are.  Yet 
God  has  forgiven  us — perhaps  so  have  those  men  whose  for- 
giveness is  alone  worth  having. 

Liberty  1  And  is  that  word  a  dream,  a  he,  the  watchword 
only  of  rebelhous  fiends,  as  bigots  say  even  now?  Our  fore- 
fathers spoke  not  so — 

The  shadow  of  iier  coming  fell 

On  Saxon  Alfred's  olive-tinctured  brow. 

Had  not  freedom,  progressive,  expanding,  descending,  been 
the  glory  and  the  strengtli  of  England  ?  Were  Magna 
Charta  and  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  Hampden's  resistance  to 
ship-money,  and  the  calm,  righteous  might  of  1G88 — were 
they  all  iutilities  and  fallacies  ?  Ever  downward,  for  seven 
hundred  years,  welling  from  the  heaven-watered  mountain- 
peaks  of  wisdom,   had   spread  the   stream  of  liberty.      The 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT.  283 

iioblcis  had  gained  their  charier  from  John  ;  the  middle  classes 
from  A^illiam  of  Orange  :  was  not  the  time  at  hand,  when 
from  -.  Queen,  more  gentle,  charitable,  upright,  spotless,  than 
had  e  ;er  sat  on  the  throne  of  England,  the  working  masses  in 
their  turn  should  gain  their  Charter  ? 

If  it  was  given,  the  gift  was  hers  :  if  it  was  demanded 
to  the  uttermost,  the  demand  would  be  made,  not  on  her,  but 
on  those  into  whose  hands  her  power  had  passed,  the  avowed 
representatives  neither  of  the  Crown  nor  of  the  people,  but  of 
the  very  commercial  class  which  was  devouring  us. 

Such  was  our  dream.  Insane  and  wicked  were  the  passions 
which  accompanied  it ;  insane  and  wicked  were  the  means 
we  chose ;  and  God  in  His  mercy  to  us,  rather  than  to  Mam- 
mon, triumphant  in  his  iniquity,  fattening  his  heart  even  now 
J'or  a  spiritual  day  of  slaughter  more  iearful  than  any  physical 
slaughter  which  we  in  our  folly  had  prepared  for  him — God 
frustrated  them. 

We  confess  our  sins.  Shall  the  Chartist  alone  be  excluded 
from  the  promise,  •'  if  we  confess  our  sins,  God  is  faithful  and 
just  to  forgive  us  our  sins,  and  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteous- 
ness  ' 

And  yet,  were  there  no  excuses  for  us  ?  1  do  not  say  for 
myself — and  yet  three  years  of  prison  might  be  some  excuse  for 
a  ^-..ured  and  harshened  spirit — but  I  will  not  avail  myself  of 
the  excuse;  for  there  were  men,  stancher  Chartists  than  ever 
1  had  been — men  who  had  suffered  not  only  imprisonment, 
but  loss  of  health  and  loss  of  fortune ;  men  whose  influence 
with  the  workmen  was  far  wider  than  my  own,  and  whose 
temptations  were  therefore  all  the  greater,  who  manfully  and 
righteously  kept  themselves  aloof  from  all  those  frantic  schemes 
and  now  reap  their  reward,  in  being  acknowledged  as  ihe  true 
leaders  of  the  artisans,  while  the  mere  preachers  of  .sedition  are 
scattered  to  the  winds. 

But  were  there  no  excuses  for  the  mass  1  AVas  there  no 
excuse  in  the  spirit  with  which  the  English  upper  classes  re- 
garded the  continental  revolutions  1  No  excuse  in  the  undis- 
guised dislike,  fear,  contempt,  which  they  expressed  for  that 
very  sacred  name  of  Liberty,  which  had  been  for  ages  the 
pride  of  England  and  her  laws — 

The  old  laws  of  Englaiul,  they 

Whose  reverend  heads  with  age  are  gray — 

Children  of  a  wiser  day — 

And  whose  solemn  voice  must  be 

Thine  own  echo,  Liberty  ! 


284  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I^OET. 

for  which,  according  to  the  latest  improvements,  is  now  sul!s 
stituted  a  bureaucracy  of  despotic  commissions  ?  Shame  upon 
those  who  sneered  at  the  very  name  of  her  to  whom  they 
owed  the  wealth  they  idolize  I  who  cry  down  Liberty  because 
God  has  given  it  to  them  in  such  priceless  abundance,  bound- 
less as  the  sunshine  and  the  air  of  heaven,  that  they  are  be- 
come unconscious  of  it  as  of  the  elements  by  which  they  live  I 
Woe  to  those  who  despise  the  gift  of  God  I  Woe  to  those 
who  have  turned  His  grace  into  a  cloak  for  tyranny;  who,  like 
the  Jews  of  old,  have  trampled  under  foot  His  covenant  at  the 
very  moment  that  they  were  asserting  their  exclusive  right  to 
it,  and  denying  His  all-embracing  love  ! 

And  were  there  no  excuses,  too,  in  the  very  arguments  M'hich 
nine  teen-twentieths  of  the  public  press  used  to  deter  us  from 
following  the  example  of  the  Continent  ?  If  there  had  been 
one  word  of  sympathy  with  the  deep  wrongs  of  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Hungary — one  attempt  to  discriminate  the 
righteous  and  God-inspired  desire  of  freedom,  from  man's 
furious  and  self-willed  perversion  of  it,  we  would  have  listened 
to  them.  But,  instead,  what  was  the  first,  last,  cardinal, 
crowning  argument  ?  "  The  cost  of  sedition  !"  "  P^evolutions 
interfered  with  trade  I"  and  therefore  they  were  damnable  I 
Interfere  with  the  food  and  labor  of  the  millions  ?  The  mil- 
lions would  take  the  responsibility  of  that  upon  themselves. 
If  the  party  of  order  cares  so  much  for  the  millions,  why  had 
they  left  them  what  they  are  ]  No ;  it  was  with  the  profits  of 
the  few  that  revolutions  interfered ;  with  the  Divine  right,  not 
so  much  of  kings,  but  of  money-making.  They  hampered 
Mammon,  the  very  fiend  who  is  devouring  the  masses.  The 
one  end  and  aim  of  existence  was  the  maintenance  of  order — 
of  peace  and  room  to  make  money  in.  And  therefore  Louis's 
spies  might  make  France  one  great  inquisition-hell ;  German 
princelets  might  sell  their  country  piecemeal  to  French  or 
Russian;  the  Hungarian  constitution,  almost  the  counterpart 
of  our  own,  might  be  sacrificed  at  the  will  of  an  i.diot  or 
a  villain  ;  Papal  misgovernment  might  continue  to  render 
Rome  a  worse  den  of  thieves  than  even  Papal  supersti- 
tion could  have  made  it  without  the  addition  of  tyranny ; 
but  Order  must  be  maintained,  for  how  else  could  the  few 
make  money  out  of  the  labor  of  the  many  ?  These  were  their 
own  arguments.  Whether  they  were  likely  to  conciliate  the 
workman  to  the  powers  that  be,  by  informing  him  that  those 
powers  were  avowedly  the  priests  of  the  very  system  v/hich 
was  crushing  him,  let  the  reader  judge. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        285 

Tlic  maintenance  of  order — of  the  order  of  disorder — ihatl  / 
was  to  be  the  new  God  before  whom  the  working  classes: 
were  to  bow  in  spell-bound  awe  :  an  idol  more  despicablof 
and  empty  than  even  that  old  divine  right  of  tyrants,  newly 
applied  by  some  well-meaning  but  illogical  personages,  not 
merely  as  of  old  to  hereditary  sovereigns,  but  to  Louis  Phil- 
ippes,  usurers,  upstarts — why  not  hereafter  to  demagogues  ? 
Blindfold  and  desperate  bigots  I  who  would  actually  thus,  in 
the  imbecility  of  terror,  deify  that  very  right  of  the  physically 
strongest  and  cunningest,  which,  if  any  thing,  is  anti-christ 
itself  That  argument  against  sedition,  the  workmen  heard  ; 
and,  recollecting  1668,  went  on  their  way,  such  as  it  was, 
unheeding. 

One  word  more,  even  at  the  risk  of  offending  many  whom  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  offend,  and  I  leave  this  hateful  discussion. 
Let  it  ever  be  remembered  that  the  working  classes  considered 
themselves  deceived,  cajoled,  by  the  passers  of  the  Pveform 
Bill ;  that  they  cherished — whether  rightly  or  wrongly  it  is 
now  too  late  to  ask — a  deep-rooted  grudge  against  those  who 
had,  as  they  thought,  made  their  hopes  and  passions  a  step- 
ping-stone toward  their  own  selfish  ends.  They  were  told  to 
support  the  Reform  Bill,  not  only  on  account  of  its  intrinsic 
righteousness — which  God  forbid  that  I  should  deny — but 
because  it  was  the  first  of  a  glorious  line  of  steps  toward  their 
enfranchisement ;  and  now  the  very  men  who  told  them  this, 
talked  peremptorily  of  "  finality,"  showed  themselves  the  most 
dogged  and  careless  of  conservatives,  and  pooh-poohed  away 
every  attempt  at  further  enlargement  of  the  suflrage.  They 
were  told  to  support  it  as  the  remedy  for  their  own  social 
miseries;  and  behold,  those  miseries  Avere  year  by  year  be- 
coming deeper,  more  wide-spread,  more  hopeless ;  their  en- 
treaties for  help  and  mercy,  in  1842,  and  at  other  times,  had 
been  lazily  laid  by  unanswered ;  and  almost  the  only  prac- 
tical efibrts  for  their  deliverance  had  been  made  by  a  Tory 
nobleman,  the  honored  and  beloved  Lord  Ashley.  They  found 
that  they  had,  in  helping  to  pass  the  Pweform  Bill,  only  helped 
to  give  power  to  the  two  very  classes  who  crushed  them — the 
great  labor-kings,  and  the  small  shopkeepers  ;  that  they  had 
blindly  armed  their  oppressors  with  the  additional  weapon  ot  ■ 
an  ever-increasing  political  majority.  They  had  been  told,i  j 
too  (let  that  never  be  forgotten),  that  in  order  to  carry  the  / 
Reform  Bill,  sedition  itself  was  lawful ;  they  had  seen  the 
master-manufacturers  themselves  give  the  signal  for  the  plug 
riots,  by  stopping  their  mills.     Their  vanity,  ferocity,  sense 


286  ALTON  LOCKE,   rA:LOR  AND  TOET. 

oi"  latent  and  fettered  power,  pride  of  numbers,  and  physical 
strength,  had  been  flattered  and  pampered  by  those  who  now 
talked  only  of  grape-shot  and  bayonets.  They  had  heard 
the  Reform  Bill  carried  by  the  threats  of  men  of  rank  and 
power,  that  "  Manchester  should  march  upon  London."  Were 
their  masters,  then,  to  have  a  monopoly  in  sedition,  as  in  every 
thing  else  ?  AVhat  had  been  fair  in  order  to  compel  the  Re- 
form Bill,  must  surely  be  fairer  still  to  compel  the  fulfillment 
of  Reform  Bill  pledges  ?  And  so,  imitating  the  example 
of  those  who  they  fancied  had  first  used  nnd  then  deserted 
them,  they,  in  their  madness,  concocted  a  lebellion,  not  ]iri- 
marily  against  the  laws  and  constitution  of  their  land,  but 
against  Mammon — against  that  accursed  system  of  competi- 
tion, slavery  of  labor,  absorption  of  the  small  capitalists  by 
the  large  ones,  and  of  the  workmen  by  all,  v/hich  is,  and  was 
nnd  ever  will  be,  their  internecine  foe.  Silly  and  sanguinary 
'Enough,  were  their  schemes,  God  knows  I  and  bootless  enougli, 
had  they  succeeded  ;  for  nothing  flourishes  in  the  revolution- 
ary atmosphere  but  that  lowest  embodiment  of  Mammon, 
"  the  black  pool  of  Agio,"  and  its  money-gamblers.  But  the 
battle  remains  still  to  be  fought ;  the  struggle  is  internecine  ; 
only  no  more  with  weapons  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  with  a 
mightier  weapon — with  that  association  which  is  the  true 
bane  of  Mammon — the  embodiment  of  brotherhood  and  love. 
We  should  have  known  that  before  the  tenth  of  April  1 
Most  true,  reader — but  wrath  is  blindness.  You  too,  surely, 
have  read  more  wisdom  than  j'ou  have  practiced  j^et  ;  seeing 
that  you  have  your  Bible,  and  perhaps,  too.  Mill's  "  Political 
Economy."  Have  you  perused  therein  the  priceless  chapter 
"On  the  probable  Futurity  of  the  Laboring  Classes'?"  If 
not,  let  me  give  you  the  reference — vol.  ii.,  p.  315,  of  the 
Second  Edition.  Read  it,  thou  selfsatisfied  Mammon,  and 
perpend  ;  for  it  is  both  a  prophecy  and  a  doom  I 

But,  the  reader  may  ask.  How  did  you,  with  your  experi- 
ence of  the  reason,  honesty,  moderation,  to  be  expected  of 
mobs,  join  in  a  plan  which,  if  it  had  succeeded,  must  have 
let  loose  on  those  "who  had"  in  London,  the  whole  flood  of 
those  "  who  had  not  V 

The  reader  shall  hear.  My  story  may  be  instructive,  as  a 
type  of  the  feelings  of  thousands  besides  me. 

It  was  the  night  after  I  had  returned  from  D ;  sitting 

in  Crossthwaite's  little  room,  I  had  heard  with  mingled  anx- 
iety and  delight  the  plans  of  iny  friends.     They  were  about 


1 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  287 

to  present  a  monster  petition  in  favor  of  the  Charter  ;  to  ac  1 
company  it  c?i  masse  to  the  door  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  I 
and  if  it  was  refused  admittance — why  then,  ulterior  measures 
were  the  only  hope.  "And  they  will  refuse  it !"  said  Crossth- 
waite  ;  "  they're  going,  I  hear,  to  revive  some  old  law  or 
other,  that  forbids  processions  within  such  and  such  a  distance 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  Let  them  forbid  I  To  carry  arms, 
to  go  in  public  procession,  to  present  petitions  openly,  instead 
of  having  them  made  a  humbug  of  by  being  laid  on  the  table 
unopened,  by  some  careless  member — they're  our  rights,  and 
we'll  have  them.  There's  no  use  mincing  the  matter :  it's 
like  the  old  fable  of  the  farmer  and  his  wheat — if  we  want  it 
reaped,  we  must  reap  it  ourselves.  Public  opinion,  and  the 
pressure  from  without,  are  the  only  things  which  have  carried 
any  measure  in  England  for  the  last  twenty  years.  Neither 
Whigs  nor  Tories  deny  it  ;  the  governed  govern  their  gov- 
ernors— that's  the  '  ordre  du  jour'  just  now — and  we'll  have 
our  turn  at  it  I  We'll  give  those  House  of  Commons  oligarchs 
— those  tools  of  the  squires  and  the  shop-keepers — we'll  give 
them  a  taste  of  pressure  from  without,  that  shall  make  the  bar 
of  the  House  crack  again.  And  then  to  be  under  arms,  day 
and  night,  till  the  Charter's  granted  I" 

"  And  if  it  is  refused  ?" 

"  Fight  I  that's  the  word,  and  no  other.  There's  no  other 
hope.  No  Charter — No  social  reforms  I  We  must  give 
them  ourselves,  for  no  one  else  will.  Look  there,  and  judge 
for  yourself  I" 

He  pulled  a  letter  out  from  among  his  papers,  and  threw 
it  across  to  me. 

"  What's  this  V 

"  That  came  while  you  were  in  jail.  There  don't  want 
many  words  about  it.  We  sent  up  a  memorial  to  govern- 
ment about  the  army  and  police  clothing.  We  told  'em 
how  it  was  the  lowest,  most  tyrannous,  most  ill-paid  of  all 
the  branches  of  slop-making ;  how  men  took  it  only  when 
they  were  starved  out  of  every  thing  else.  We  entreated 
them  to  have  mercy  on  us — entreated  them  to  interfere 
between  the  merciless  contractors,  and  the  poor  wretches  on 
whose  flesh  and  blood  contractors,  sweaters,  and  colonels 
were  all  fattening  ;  and  there's  the  answer  we  got.  Look  at 
it  ;  read  it  !  Again  and  again  I've  been  minded  to  placard  it 
on  the  walls,  that  all  the  world  might  see  the  might  and  the 
mercies  of  the  government.  Read  it  I  '  Sorry  to  say  that  it 
is  utterly  out  of  the  power  of  lier  Majesty's  — — s  to  interfere 


L'88  ALTOxN  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

— as  the  question  of  wages  rests  entirely  between  the  contract- 
or and  the  workmen.'" 

"  He  hes!"  I  said.  "  If  it  did,  the  workmen  might  put  a 
pistol  to  the  contractor's  head,  and  say — '  You  shall  not  tempt 
the  poor,  needy,  greedy,  starving  M'orkers  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion, and  the  destruction  of  their  class ;  you  shall  not  offer 
these  murderous,  poisonous  prices.  If  we  saw  you  offering 
our  neighbor  a  glass  of  laudanum,  we  would  stop  you  at  all  risks 
— and  we  will  stop  you  now.'  No  I  no  I  John,  the  question 
don't  lie  between  workmen  and  contractor,  but  between 
workman  and  contractor-plus-grape-and-bayonets  I" 

"  Look  again.  There's  worse  comes  after  that.  '  If  gov- 
ernment did  interfere,  it  would  not  benefit  the  workman,  as 
his  rate  of  wages  depends  entirely  on  the  amount  of  compe- 
tition between  the  workmen  themselves.'  Yes,  my  dear 
children,  you  must  eat  each  other ;  we  are  far  too  fond 
parents  to  interfere  with  so  delightful  an  amusement  I  Curse 
them — sleek,  hard-hearted,  impotent,  do-nothings  I  They 
confess  themselves  powerless  against  competition — powerless 
against  the  very  devil  that  is  destroying  us,  faster  and  faster 
every  year  !  They  can't  help  us  on  a  single  point.  They 
can't  check  population  ;  and  if  they  could,  they  can't  get  rid 
of  the  population  which  exists.  They  daren't  give  us  a  com 
prehensive  emigration-scheme.  They  daren't  lift  a  finger  to 
prevent  gluts  in  the  labor-market.  They  daren't  interfere 
between  slave  and  slave,  between  slave  and  tyrant.  They 
are  cowards,  and  like  cowards  they  shall  fall !" 

"  Ay — like  cowards  they  shall  fall !"  I  answered  I  and 
from  that  moment  I  was  a  rebel  and  a  conspirator. 

"  And  will  the  country  join  us  V 

"  The  cities  will ;  never  mind  the  country.  They  are  too 
weak  to  resist  their  own  tyrants — and  they  are  too  weak  to 
resist  us.  The  country's  always  driveling  in  the  background. 
A  country-party's  sure  to  be  a  party  of  imbecile  bigots.  No- 
body minds  them." 

I  laughed.  "It  always  was  so,  John.  When  Christianity 
first  spread,  it  Avas  in  the  cities — till  a  pagan,  a  villager,  got 
to  mean  a  heathen  for  ever  and  ever." 

"  And  so  it  was  in  the  French  revolution ;  Avhen  Popery 
had  died  out  of  all  the  rest  of  France,  the  priests  and  tho 
aristocx'ats  still  found  their  dupes  in  the  remote  provinces." 

"  Tlie  sign  of  a  dying  systsm  that,  be  sure.  Woe  to  Tory- 
ism and  the  Church  of  England,  and  every  thing  else,  when 
it  gets  to  boasting  that  its  stronghold  is  still  the  hearts  of  tho 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAlLuR  AND  rOP:T.  2ii 

agricultural  poor.     It  is  the  cities,  John,  the  cities,  where  the 
light  dawns  first — Avhere  man  meets  man,  and  spirit  quickens 
spirit,  and  intercourse  breeds  knowledge,  and  knowledge  sym- 
pathy and  sympathy  enthusiasm,  combination,  power  irresist- 
ible ;  while  the  agriculturists  remain  ignorant,  selfish,  weak, 
because  they  are  isolated  from  each  other.     Let  the  country  , 
go.     The  towns  shall  win  the  Charter  lor  England  I     And  j 
then  for  social  reform,  sanitary  reform,  acdile  reform,  cheap  / 
food,  interchange  of  free  labor,  liberty,  equality,  and  brother-/ 
hood  forever  I" 

Such  was  our  Babcl-tower,  whose  top  should  reach  to 
heaven.  To  understand  the  maddening  allurement  of  that 
dream,  you  must  have  lain,  like  us,  for  years  in  darkness  and 
the  pit.  You  must  have  struggled  for  bread,  for  lodging,  for 
cleanliness,  for  water,  for  education — for  all  that  makes  life 
worth  living — and  found  them  becoming,  year  by  year,  more 
hopelessly  impossible,  if  not  to  yourself,  yet  still  to  the  millions 
less  gifted  than  yourself;  you  must  have  sat  in  darkness  and 
the  shadow  of  death,  till  you  are  ready  to  welcome  any  ray 
of  light,  even  though  it  should  be  the  glare  of  a  volcano. 

N 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

A  PATRIOT'S  REWARD. 

I  NE\'ER  shall  forget  one  evening's  walk,  as  Crosstlnvaite 
and  I  strode  back  together  from  the  Convention.  We  had 
walked  on  some  way  arm-in-arm  in  silence,  under  the  crush- 
ing and  embittering  sense  of  having  something  to  conceal — 
something,  which  if  those  who  passed  us  so  carelessly  in  the 
street  had  known —  I  It  makes  a  villain  and  a  savage  of  a 
man,  that  consciousness  of  a  dark,  hateful  secret.  And  it 
was  a  hatefnl  one  I  a  dark  and  desperate  necessity,  which 
wc  tried  to  call  by  noble  names,  that  faltered  on  our  lips  as 
we  pronounced  them  ;  for  the  spirit  of  God  was  not  in  us  ; 
and  instead  of  bright  hope,  and  the  clear  fixed  lode-star  of 
duty,  weltered  in  our  imaginations  a  wild  possible  future  of 
Umult,  and  flame,  and  blood. 

"  It  must  be  done  1  it  shall  be  done  I  it  will  be  done !" 
burst  out  John,  at  last,  in  that  positive,  excited  tone,  which 
indicated  a  half  disbelief  of  his  own  words.  "  I've  been  read- 
ing Macerone  on  street  warfare ;  and  I  see  the  way  as  clear 
as  day." 

I  ielt  nothing  but  the  dogged  determination  of  despair. 
"  It  must  be  tried,  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst — but  I 
have  no  hope.  I  read  Somerville's  answer  to  that  Colonel 
Macerone.  Ten  years  ago  he  showed  it  was  impossible. 
We  can  not  stand  against  artillery ;  we  have  no  arms." 

"I'll  tell  you  where  to  buy  plenty.  There's  a  man.  Pow- 
er, or  Bower,  he's  sold  hundreds  in  the  last  few  days  ;  and  ho 
understands  the  matter.  He  tells  us  we're  certain,  safe. 
There  are  hundreds  of  young  men  in  the  government-offices 
ready  to  join,  if  wc  do  but  succeed  at  first.  It  all  depends  on 
that.     The  first  hour  settles  the  fate  of  a  revolution." 

"If  we  succeed,  yes — the  cowardly  world  will  always  side 
with  the  conquering  parly ;  and  we  shall  have  every  pick- 
pocket and  ruffian  in  our  wake,  plundering  in  the  name  of 
liberty  and  order." 

"  Then  we'll  shoot  them  like  dogs,  as  the  French  did  I 
'  Mort  au  voleurs'  shall  be  the  word  I" 

"  Unless  they  shoot  us.  The  French  had  a  national  guard, 
who  had  projwrty  to  lose,  and  took  care  of  it.  The  shop- 
keepers here  will  be  all  against  us;  they'll  all  be  sworn  in 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAlLOr.  AND  POET.        -231 

Epecial  constables,  to  a  man  ;  and  between  them  and  the 
eoldicrs,  we  shall  have  three  to  one  upon  us." 

"  Oh  I  that  Power  assures  me  the  soldiers  will  fraternize. 
He  says  there  are  three  regiments  at  least  have  promised  sol- 
emnly to  shoot  their  officers,  and  give  up  their  arm.s  to  the 
mob." 

"  Very  important,  if  true — and  very  scoundrelly,  too.  I'd 
sooner  be  shot  myself  by  fair  fighting,  than  see  officers  shot 
by  cowardly  treason." 

"  Well,  it  is  ugly.  I  like  f;iir  ])lay  as  well  as  any  man. 
But  it  can't  be  done.  There  must  be  a  surprise,  a  coicp  de 
main,  as  the  French  say"  (poor  Crossthwaite  was  always 
quoting  French  in  those  days).  "  Once  show  our  strength — 
burst  upon  the  tyrants  like  a  thunderclap  ;   and  then  ! — 

Men  of  England,  heirs  of  glory, 
Heroes  of  unwritten  .story, 
Rise,  shake  off  the  chains  like  dew 
Which  in  sleep  have  fallen  on  you! 
Ye  are  many,  they  are  few!" 

"That's  just  what  I  am  afraid  they  are  not.  Let's  go 
and  find  out  this  man  Power,  and  hear  his  authority  for  the 
Eoldier-story.      Who  knows  him  ?" 

"  Why,  Mike  Kelly  and  he  have  been  a  deal  together  of 
late.  Kelly's  a  true  heart,  now  —  a  true  Irishman — ready 
ibr  any^thing.  Those  Irish  are  the  boys,  after  all — though  I 
don't  deny  they  do  bluster  and  have  their  way  a  little  too 
much  in  the  Convention.  But  still  Ireland's  wrongs  are 
Euffland's.  We  have  the  same  oppressors.  We  must  make 
common  cause  against  the  tyrants." 

"  I  wish  to  Heaven  they  would  just  have  staid  at  home, 
and  ranted  on  the  other  side  of  the  water ;  they  had  their 
own  way  there,  and  no  Mammonite  middle-class  to  keep 
them  down  :  and  yet  they  never  did  an  atom  of  good.  Their 
eloquence  is  all  bombast,  and  what's  more,  Cro,?sthwaite, 
though  there  are  some  fine  fellows  among  them,  nine-tenths 
are  liars — liars  in  grain,  and  you  know  it — " 

Crossthwaite  turned  angrily  to  me.  "  Why,  you  are  get- 
ting as  reactionary  as  old  Mackaye  himself!" 

"  I  am  not — and  he  is  not.  I  am  ready  to  die  on  a  bar- 
ricade to-morrow,  if  it  comes  to  that.  I  haven't  six  months' 
lease  of  life — I  am  going  into  a  consumption;  and  a  bullet 
is  as  easy  a  death  as  spitting  up  my  lungs  piecemeal.  But  I 
despise  these  Irish,  because  I  can't  trust  them — they  can't 
trust  each  other — they  can't  trust  themselves.     You  know  as 


292  \LTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

well  as  I  that  you  can't  get  common  justice  done  in  Ireland, 
because  you  can  depend  on  no  man's  oath.  You  know  as 
well  as  I,  that  in  Parliament  or  out,  nine  out  of  teo  of"  them 
will  stick  at  no  lie,  even  if  it  has  been  exposed  and  refuted 
fifty  times  over,  provided  it  serves  the  purpose  of  the  moment : 
and  I  often  think,  that  after  all,  Mackaye's  right,  and  what's 
the  matter  with  Ireland  is  just  that  and  nothing  else — that 
from  the  nobleman  in  his  castle  to  the  beggar  on  his  dunghill, 
they  are  a  nation  of  liars,  John  Crossthwaite  I" 

"  Sandy's  a  prejudiced  old  Scotchman." 

"  Sandy's  a  wiser  man  than  you  or  I,  and  you  know  it." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  deny  that  ;  but  he's  getting  old,  and  I  think 
he  has  been  failing  in  his  mind  of  late." 

"  I'.m  afraid  he's  failing  in  his  health  ;  he  has  never  been 
the  same  man  since  they  hooted  him  down  in  John-street. 
But  he  hasn't  altered  in  his  opinions  one  jot ;  and  I'll  tell 
you  what — I  believe  he's  right.  I'll  die  in  this  matter  like 
a  man,  because  it's  the  cause  of  liberty  ;  but  I've  fearful 
misgivings  about  it,  just  because  Irishmen  are  at  the  head 
of  it." 

"  Of  course  they  are — they  have  the  deepest  wrongs  ;  and 
that  makes  them  most  earnest  in  the  cause  of  right.  The 
sympathy  of  suflTering,  as  they  say  themselves,  has  bound 
them  to  the  English  working-man  against  the  same  oppress- 
ors." 

"  Then  let  them  fight  those  oppressors  at  home,  and  we'll 
do  the  same  :  that's  the  true  way  to  show  sympathy.  Charity 
begins  at  home.  They  are  always  crying  "Ireland  for  the 
Irish  ;"  why  can't  they  leave  England  for  the  English  ?" 

"  You're  envious  of  O'Connor's  power  !" 

"  Say  that  again,  John  Crossthwaite,  and  we  part  for 
liver!"  and  I  threw  off  his  arm  indignantly. 

"  No — but — don't  let's  quarrel,  my  dear  old  fellow — now, 
that  perhaps,  perhaps  we  may  never  meet  again — but  I  can't 
bear  to  hear  the  Irish  abused.  They're  noble,  enthusiastic, 
generous  fellows.  If  we  English  had  half  as  warm  hearts, 
we  shouldn't  be  as  we  are  now;  and  O'Connor's  a  glorious 
man,  I  tell  you.  Just  think  of  him,  the  descendant  of  the 
ancient  kings,  throwing  away  his  rank,  his  name,  all  he  had 
in  the  world,  for  the  cause  of  the  suffering  millions!" 

"  That's  a  most  aristocratic  speech,  John,"  said  I,  smiling, 
m  spite  of  my  gloom.  "  So  you  keep  a  leader  because  he's 
descended  from  ancient  kings,  do  you  ?  I  should  prefer  him 
just  because  he  was  not — just  because  he  was  a  working- 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOU  AND  I'OKT.  -293 

inau,  anil  come  of  workmen's  blood.  We  shall  see  ;  we  shall 
see  whether  he's  stanch,  after  all.  To  my  mind,  little 
Cufly  s  worth  a  great  deal  more,  as  far  as  earnestness  goes," 

"  Oh  I  Cuffy's  a  low-bred,  uneducated  fellow  I" 

"  Aristocrat  again,  John  I"  said  I,  as  we  went  up-stairs  to 
[velly's  room  ;  and  Crossthwaite  did  not  answer. 

There  was  so  great  a  hubbub  inside  Kelly's  room,  of 
English,  French,  and  Irish,  all  talking  at  once,  that  we 
knocked  at  intervals  for  full  five  minutes,  unheard  by  the 
vioisy  crew ;  and  I,  in  despair,  was  trying  the  handle,  which 
was  fast,  when,  to  my  astonishment,  a  heavy  blow  was  struck 
on  the  panel  from  the  inside,  and  the  point  of  a  sharp  instru- 
ment driven  right  through,  close  to  my  knees,  with  the  ex- 
clamation, 

"  What  do  you  think  o'  that,  now,  in  a  policeman's  bread- 
basket ?" 

"  I  think,"  answered  I,  as  loud  as  I  dared,  and  as  near  tho 
dangerous  door,  "if  I  intended  really  to  use  it,  I  wouldn't 
make  such  a  fool's  noise  about  it." 

There  was  a  dead  silence  ;  the  door  was  hastily  opened, 
and  Kelly's  nose  poked  out ;  while  we,  in  spite  of  the  horrible- 
ness  of  the  whole  thing,  could  not  help  laughing  at  his  face 
9f  terror.  Seeing  who  we  were,  he  welcomed  us  in  at  once, 
into  a  miserable  apartment,  full  of  pikes  and  daggers,  brand- 
ished by  .some  dozen  miserable,  ragged,  half-starved  artisans. 
Three-lburths,  I  saw  at  once,  were  slop-working  tailors.  There 
was  a  bloused  and  bearded  Frenchman  or  two  ;  but  the  major- 
•ty  were,  as  was  to  have  been  expected,  the  oppressed,  the 
starved,  the  untaught,  the  despairing,  the  insane ;  "  the  danger- 
ous classes,"  which  society  creates,  and  then  shrinks  in  horror, 
like  Frankenstein,  from  the  monster  her  own  clumsy  ambition 
has  created.  Thou  Frankenstein  Mammon  I  hast  thou  not 
had  warnings  enough,  either  to  make  thy  machines  like  men, 
or  stop  thy  bungling,  and  let  God  make  them  for  Himself? 

I  will  not  repeat  what  I  heard  there.  There  is  many  a 
frantic  ruffian  of  that  night  now  sitting  "  in  his  right  mind" 
— though  not  yet  "  clothed" — waiting  for  God's  deliverance, 
rather  than  his  own. 

We  got  Kelly  out  of  the  room  into  the  street,  and  began 
inquiring  of  him  tlie  whereabouts  of  this  said  Bower,  or 
Power.  "He  didn't  know" — the  feather-headed  Irishman 
that  he  was  ! — "  Faix,  by-the-by,  he'd  forgotten — an'  ho 
went  to  look  for  him  at  the  place  he  tould  him,  and  they 
didn't  know  sich  a  one  there — " 


2i»4        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Oh,  oil.  I  Mr.  Power  has  an  alibi,  then  ?  Perhaps  an 
alias  too  ?" 

''He  didn't  know  his  name  rightly.  Some  said  it  was 
Brown  ;  but  he  was  a  broth  of  a  boy — a  thrue  people's  man. 
Bedad,  he  guv'  away  arms  afthen  and  althen  to  them  that 
couldn't  buy  'em.  An'  he's  as  free-spoken — och,  but  he's  put 
me  into  tlie  confidence  I  come  down  the  street  a  bit,  and  I'll 
tellyees.  I'll  be  Lord  Lieutenant  o'  Dublin  Castle  meself,  if 
it  succades,  as  shure  as  there's  no  snakes  in  ould  Ireland,  an' 
revenge  her  wrongs  ankle  deep  in  the  bhlood  o'  the  Saxon  ! 
Whirroo  I  for  the  marthyred  memory  o'  the  three  hundred 
thousint  vargens  o'  Wexford  I" 

"Hold  your  tongue,  you  ass  I"  said  Crossthwaite,  as  he 
clapped  his  hand  over  his  mouth,  expecting  every  moment  to 
find  us  all  three  in  the  Rhadamanthine  grasp  of  a  policeman  ; 
while  I  stood  laughing,  as  people  will,  for  mere  disgust  at  the 
ridiculous  which  almost  always  intermingles  with  the  horrible. 

At  last,  out  it  came — 

"  Bedad  I  we're  going  to  do  it  I  London's  to  be  set  o'  fire 
in  seventeen  places  at  the  same  moment,  an'  I'm  to  light  two 
of  them  to  me  own  self,  and  make  a  hollycrust — ay,  that's 
the  word — o'  Ireland's  scorpions,  to  sting  themselves  to  death 
in  circling  flame — " 

"  You  would  not  do  such  a  villainous  thing?"  cried  we,  both 
at  once. 

"  Bedad  I  but  I  won't  liarm  a  hair  o'  their  heads  I  Shure, 
we'll  save  the  women  and  childer  alive,  and  run  for  the  fire- 
ingins  our  blessed  selves,  and  then  out  with  the  pikes,  and 
feeize  the  Bank  and  the  Tower — 

An'  av'  I  lives,  I  lives  viethorious, 
An'  av'  I  dies,  my  sow]  in  glory  is ; 
Love  fa — a — are — well!" 

I  was  getting  desperate  :  the  whole  thing  seemed  at  once 
so  horrible  and  so  impossible.  There  must  be  some  villainous 
trap  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

"  If  you  don't  tell  me  more  about  this  fellow  Power,  Mike,'' 
said  I,  "  I'll  blow  your  brains  out  on  the  spot:  either  you  ot 
lie  are  villains."  And  I  valiantly  pulled  out  my  only  weapon, 
the  door-key,  and  put  it  to  his  head. 

"  Och !  are  ye  mad,  thin  ?  He's  a  broth  of  a  boy ;  and 
I'll  tell  ye.  Shure  he  knows  all  about  the  red-coats,  case  he's 
an  arthillery-man  himself,  and  that's  the  way  he's  found  out 
his  cran'  combustible." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  29J 

"  An  artlllcry-maii  ?"  said  John.  "  He  told  me  he  was  u 
writer  for  the  press  !" 

"  Bedad,  thin,  he's  mistaken  himself  intirely  ;  for  he  tould 
me  Avith  his  own  mouth.  And  I'll  show  ye  the  thing  he  sowld 
me  as  is  to  do  it.  Shure,  it'll  set  fire  to  tlie  stones  o'  the  street, 
av'  ye  pour  a  bit  vitriol  on  it." 

"i^iit  fire  to  stones'?     I  must  see  that  before  I  believe  it." 
"  Shure  an'  ye  sliall  then.     Where'll  I  buy  a  bit  ?     Sorra 
a  shop  is  there  open  this  time  o'  night ;  an'  troth  I  forgot  the 
name  o'  it  intirely  I     Poker  o'  Moses,  but  here's  a  bit  in  my 
pocket !" 

And  out  of  his  tattered  coat-tail  he  lugged  a  flask  of  powder 
and  a  lump  of  some  cheap  chemical  salt,  wliose  name  I  have, 
1  am  ashamed  to  say,  forgotten. 

"  You're  a  pretty  fellow  to  keep  such  things  in  the  same 
pocket  with  gunpowder  I" 

"  Come  along  to  Mackaye's,"  said  Crossthwaite.  "  I'll  see 
to  the  bottom  of  this.  Be  hanged,  but  I  think  the  fellow's  a 
cursed  moiichard — some  government-spy  I" 

"Spy  is  he,  thin  ?  Och  I  the  thief  o'  the  vi^orld  !  I'll  stab 
him  I  I'll  murthcr  him  I  an'  burn  the  town  aftherward,  all 
the  same." 

"Unless,"  said  I,  "just  as  you've  got  your  precious  com 
bustible  to  blaze  ofl',  up  he  comes  from  behind  the  corner  and 
gives  you  in  charge  to  a  policeman.  It's  a  villainous  trap, 
you  miserable  fool,  as  sure  as  the  moon's  in  heaven." 

"Upon  my  word,  I  am  afraid  it  is — and  I'm  trapped, 
too." 

"  Blood  and  turf  I  thin,  it's  he  that  I'll  trap,  thin.  There's 
two  million  free  and  inlightened  Irishmen  in  London,  to 
avenge  my  marthyrdom  wi'  pikes  and  baggonets  like  ravnig 
salviges,  and  blood  for  blood  I" 

"Like  savages,  indeed  I"  said  I  to  Crossthwaite,  "And 
pretty  savage  company  we  are  keeping.  Liberty,  like  poverty, 
makes  a  man  acquainted  with  strange  companions  !" 

"  And  who's  made  'em  savages  ?  Who  has  left  them 
savages  1  That  the  greatest  nation  of  the  earth  has  had  Ire- 
land in  her  hands  three  hundred  years — and  her  people  still 
t)  be  savages — if  that  don't  justify  a  revolution,  what  does  '.' 
Why,  it's  just  because  these  poor  brutes  are  what  they  are. 
that  rebellion  becomes  a  sacred  duty.  It's  for  them — for  such 
fools,  brutes,  as  that  there,  and  the  millions  more  like  him, 
and  hkely  to  remain  like  him,  that  I've  made  up  my  mind  to 
do  or  die  to-morrow  !" 


'29G        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET 

There  was  a  grand  half-truth,  distorted,  iniscolored  in  the 
words,  that  silenced  me  for  the  time. 

We  entered  Mackaj  e's  door  ;  strangely  enough  at  that 
time  of  night,  it  stood  wide  open.  What  could  be  the 
matter  ?  I  heard  loud  voices  in  the  inner  room,  and  ran 
forward  calling  his  name,  when,  to  my  astonishment,  out 
past  me  rushed  a  tall  man,  followed  by  a  steaming  kettle, 
which,  missing  him,  took  full  effect  on  Kelly's  chest  as  he 
stood  in  the  entry,  filling  his  shoes  with  boiling  water,  and 
producing  a  roar  that  might  have  been  heard  at  Temple-bar. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?" 

"Have  I  hit  him  ?"  said  the  old  man,  in  a  state  of  unusual 
excitement. 

"  Bedad  I  it  was  the  man  Power  !  the  cursed  spy  !  An' 
just  as  I  was  going  to  slate  the  villain  nately,  came  the 
kittle,  and  kilt  me  all  over!" 

"  Power  ?  He's  as  many  names  as  a  pickpocket,  and  as 
many  callings,  too,  I'll  warrant.  He  came  sneaking  in  to 
tell  me  the  sogers  were  a'  ready  to  gie  up  their  arms  if  Pd 
come  forward  to  them  to-morrow.  So  I  tauld  him,  sin'  he 
was  so  sure  o't,  he'd  better  gang  and  tak  the  arms  himsel'  ; 
an'  then  he  let  out  he'd  been  a  policeman — " 

"  A  policeman  I"  said  both  Crossthwaite  and  Kelly,  with 
strong  expletives. 

"  A  policeman  doon  in  INIanchester ;  I  thought  I  kenned 
his  face  fra  the  first.  And  when  the  rascal  saw  he'd  let  out 
too  much,  he  wanted  to  make  out  that  he'd  been  a'  along  a 
spy  for  the  Chartists,  while  he  was  makin'  believe  to  be  a 
spy  o'  the  goovernment's.  Sae  when  he  came  that  far,  I  just 
up  wi'  the  het  water,  and  bleezed  awa'  at  him ;  an'  noo  I 
maun  gang  and  het  some  mair,  for  my  drap  toddy." 

Sandy  had  a  little  vitriol  in  the  house,  so  we  took  the  com- 
bustible down  into  the  cellar,  and  tried  it.  It  blazed  up ; 
but  burnt  the  stone  as  much  as  the  reader  may  expect.  We 
next  tried  it  on  a  lump  of  wood.  It  just  scorched  the  place 
vvhere  it  lay,  and  then  went  out ;  leaving  poor  Kelly  perfectly 
frantic  with  rage,  terror,  and  disappointment.  He  dashed  up 
stairs,  and  out  into  the  street,  on  a  wild-goose  chase  after  the 
rascal,  and  we  saw  no  more  of  him  that  night. 

I  relate  a  simple  fact.  I  am  afraid — perhaps,  for  the  pooi 
workmen's  sake,  I  should  say  I  am  glad,  that  it  was  not  an 
unique  one.  Villains  of  this  kind,  both  in  April  and  in  June, 
mixed  among  the  working-men,  excited  their  worst  passions 
by  bloodthirsty  declamations   and  extravagant  promises  of 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  097 

success,  sold  them  arms  ;  and  then,  like  the  shameless  wretch 
on  whose  evidence  Cuffy  and  Joues  were  principally  convicted, 
bore  witness  against  their  own  victims,  iinblushingly  declar- 
ing themselves  to  have  been  al"  along  the  tools  of  the  govern- 
ment. I  entreat  all  those  who  disbelieve  this  apparently 
prodigious  assertion,  to  read  the  evidence  given  on  the  trial 
of  the  John-street  conspirators,  and  judge  for  themselves. 

"  The  petition's  fdling  faster  than  ever  I"  said  Crossth- 
waite,  as  that  evening  we  returned  to  Mackaye's  little  back 
room. 

"  Dirt's  plenty,"  grumbled  the  old  man,  who  had  settled 
himself  again  to  his  pipe,  with  his  feet  on  the  fender,  and  his 
head  half  way  up  the  chimney. 

"Now  or  never  I"  went  on  Crossthwaite,  without  minding 
him;  "Now  or  never  I  The  manufacturing  districts  seem 
more  firm  than  ever." 

"An'  words  cheap,"  commented  Mackaye,  sotto  voce. 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  Heaven  keep  us  from  the  necessity  of 
ulterior  measures  I     But  what  must  be,  must." 

"  The  government  expect  it,  I  can  tell  you.  They're  in  a 
pitiable  funk,  I  hear.  One  regiment's  ordered  to  Uxbridge 
already,  because  they  daren't  trust  it.  They'll  find  soldiers 
are  men,  I  do  believe,  after  all." 

"  Men  they  are,"  said  Sandy  ;  "  an'  therefore  they'll  no  be 
fools  eueugh  to  stan'  by  an'  see  ye  pu'  down  a'  vhat  is.  to  build 
up  ye  yourselves  dinna  yet  rightly  ken  what.  Men  ?  Ay, 
and  wi'  mair  common  sense  in  them  than  some  that  had 
mair  opportunities." 

"I  think  I've  settled  every  thing,"  went  on  Crossthwaite, 
who  seemed  not  to  have  heard  the  last  speech,  "settled  every 
thing — for  poor  Katie,  I  mean.  If  any  thing  happens  to  me, 
she  has  friends  at  Cork — she  thiidcs  so  at  least — and  they'd 
get  her  out  to  service  somewhere — God  knows  I"  And  his 
lace  worked  fearfully  for  a  minute. 

"Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori  I"  said  I. 

"There  are  twa  methods  o'  fulfilling  that  saw,  I'm  think- 
in'.  Impreemis,  to  shoot  your  neebor  ;  in  secundis,  to  hang 
yoursel'." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  grumbling  at  the  whole  thing  in 
this  way,  Mr.  Mackaye  ?  Are  you,  too,  going  to  shrink  back 
from  The  Cause,  now  that  liberty  is  at  the  very  doors  ?" 

"Ou,  then,  I'm  stanch  eneuch.  I  ha'  laid  in  my  ain  stock 
o'  wepons  for  the  fecht  at  Armageddon." 

N* 


•vj 


238  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  You  don't  mean  it?      What  have  you  got  ?" 

"  A  braw  new  halter,  an'  a  muckle  nail.  There's  a  gran' 
tough  beam  here  ayont  tlie  ingle,  Aviil  hand  me  a'  crouse  and 
oantie,  when  the  time  comes." 

"  What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?"  asked  v.x-  both  together. 

"Ha'  ye  looked  into  the  monster-petition?" 

"  Of  course  we  have,  and  signed  it  too  !" 

"  Monster  ?  Ay,  ierlie  !  Monstrum  horrendum,  informe, 
iiigens,  cui  lumen  adeemptum.  Desinit  in  piscem  mulier  for- 
mosa  superne.  Leeberty,  the  bonnie  lassie,  wi'  a  sealgh's  fud 
to  her!  I'll  no  sign  it.  I  dinna  consort  wi'  shoplifters,  an' 
idiots,  an'  suckin'  bairns — wi'  long  nose  an'  short  nose  an'  pug 
nose  an  seventeen  Deuks  o'  Wellington,  let  alone  a  baker's 
dizcn  o' Queens.    It's  no  company,  that,  for  a  puirauld patriot  I" 

"Why,  my  dear  Mackaye,"  said  I,  "  you  know  the  Reform 
Bill  petitions  were  just  as  bad." 

"  And  the  Anti-Corn-law  ones  too,  for  that  matter,"  said 
Crossthwaite.  "You  know  we  can't  help  accidents;  the 
petition  will  never  be  looked  through." 

"  It's  always  been  the  plan  with  Whigs  and  Tories,  too  I" 

"  I  ken  that  better  than  ye,  I  guess." 

"  And  isn't  every  thing  fair  in  a  good  cause  ?"  said  Crossth 
waitc.     "  Desperate  men  really  can't  be  so  dainty." 

"  Kow  lang  ha'  ye  learnit  that  deil's  lee,  Johnnie  ?  Ye 
were  no  o'  that  mind  five  year  agone,  lad.  Ha'  ye  been  to 
Exeter — a'  the  while  1  A's  fair  in  the  cause  o'  Mammon  ; 
in  the  cause  o'  cheap  bread,  that  means  cheap  wages  ;  but  in 
the  cause  o'  God — Avae's  me,  that  ever  I  suld  see  this  day 
ewer  again  I  ower  again  I  Like  the  dog  to  his  vomit — just 
as  it  was  ten,  twenty,  fifty  years  agone  I  I'll  just  ha'  a 
petition  a'  alane  to  rnysel' — I,  an'  a  twa  or  three  honest  men. 
Besides,  ye're  just  eight  days  ower  time  wi'  it." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

I"  Suld  ha'  sent  it  in  the  1st  o'  April,  an'  no  the  10th  ;  a' 
fool's-day  wud  ha'  suited  wi'  it  ferlie  1" 

"Mr.  Mackaye,"  said  CrosstliAvaite,  in  a  passion,  "I  shall 
certainly  inform  the  Convention  of  your  extraordinary  lan- 
guage!" 
^'     "  Do,  laddie  I  do,  then  I     An'  tell  'em  this,  too" — and,  as 
^     he  rose,  his  whole  face  and  figure  assumed  a  dignity,  an  aw- 
fuhicss,  which  I  had  never  seen  before  in  him — "  tell  them 

Ihat  ha'  driven  out and  ,  an'  every  one  that  daur 

speak  a  word  o'  common  sense,  or  common  humanity — them 
that  stone  the  prophets,  an'  quench  the  Spirit  o'  God,  and 


ALTON  LOCKC,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.        2D-J 

love  a  lie,  an'  them  that  mak'  the  same — them  that  think  to 
bring  about  the  reign  o'  love  au'  brithcrhood  wi'  pikes  an' 
vitriol-bottles,  murthcr  an'  blasphemy — tell  'em  than  aue  o' 
fburseore  years  and  mair — ane  that  has  grawn  gray  in  the 
people's  cause — that  sat  at  the  feet  o'  Cartwright,  an'  knelt 
by  the  death-bed  o'  llabbie  Burns — ane  that  cheerit  Burdett 
as  he  went  to  the  Tower,  an'  spent  his  wee  earnings  for  Hunt 
an'  Cobbett — ane  that  beheld  the  shaking  o'  the  nations  in 
the  ninety-three,  and  heard  the  birth-shriek  o'  a  new-born 
Avorld — ane  that  while  he  was  yet  a  callant  saw  Liberty  afar  _  i 
olt;  an'  seeing  her  was  glad,  as  lor  a  bonny  bride,  an'  followed 
her  through  the  wilderness  for  threescore  weary  waeful  years 
— sends  them  the  last  message  that  e'er  he'll  send  on  airth  ; 
tell'  em  that  they're  the  slaves  o'  warse  than  priests  and 
kings — the  slaves  o'  their  ain  lusts  an'  passions — the  slaves  o' 
every  loud-tongued  knave  an'  mountebank  that'll  pamper 
them  in  their  self  conceit ;  and  that  the  gude  God  '11  smite 
'em  down,  and  bring  'em  to  naught,  and  scatter  'em  abroad, 
till  they  repent,  an'  get  clean  hearts  an'  a  richt  speerit  within 
them,  and  learn  His  lesson  that  he's  been  trying  to  teach  'em 
this  threescore  years — that  the  cause  o'  the  people  is  the  cause 
o'  him  that  made  the  people ;  an'  wae  to  them  that  tak'  the 
deevil's  tools  to  do  his  wark  wi'  I  Gude  guide  us  I — What^^ 
was  yon,  Alton,  laddie  ?"  ""'^ 

"What?" 

"  But  I  saw  a  spunk  o'  fire  fa'  into  your  bosom  I  I've  na 
faith  in  siccan  heathen  omens  ;  but  auld  Carlins  wud  say  it's 
a  sign  o'  death  within  the  year — save  ye  from  it,  my  puir 
misguidit  bairn  I  Aiblins  a  fire-flaught  o'  my  een,  it  might 
be — I've  had  them  unco  often  the  day — " 

And  he  stooped  down  to  the  fire,  and  began  to  light  his 
pipe,  muttering  to  himself, 

"  Saxty  years  o'  madness  I  saxty  years  o'  madness  !  How 
lang,  O  Lord,  before  thou  bring  these  puir  daft  bodies  to  their 
richt  mind  again  ?" 

We  stood  watching  him,  and  interchanging  looks — expect 
ing  something,  we  knew  not  what. 

Suddenly  he  sank  forward  on  his  knees,  with  his  hands  on   I 
the  bars  of  the  grate;    we  rushed  forward,  and  caught  him  / 
up.     He  turned  his  eyes  up  to  me,  speechless,  with  a  ghastly  \ 
expression;    one  side  of  his  face  was  all  drawn  aside — and/ 
helpless  as  a  child,  he  le*t  us  lift  him  to  his  bed,  and  there  hal 
lay,  staring  at  the  ceiling.  I 

Four  weary  days  passed  by — it  was  the  night  of  ihe  niiith 


300  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

I  of  April.  In  the  evening  of  that  day  his  speech  returned  to 
him  on  a  sudden — he  seemed  uneasy  about  something,  and 
several  times  asked  Katie  the  day  of  the  month. 

"  Before  the  tenth — ay,  we  maun  pray  for  that.  I  doubt 
but  I'm  ower  hearty  yet — I  canna  bide  to  see  the  shame  o* 
that  day — 

Na — I'll  tak'  no  potions  nor  pills — gin  it  were  na  for  scruples 
o'  conscience,  I'd  apocartereeze  a'thegither,  after  the  manner 
o'  the  ancient  philosophers.  But  it's  no'  lawful,  I  misdoubt, 
to  starve  onesel'." 

"  Here  is  the  doctor,"  said  Katie. 

"Doctor?  Wha  ca'd  for  doctors?  Canst  thou  adminis- 
ter to  a  mind  diseased?  Can  ye  tak'  long  nose,  an'  short 
nose,  an'  snub  nose,  an'  seventeen  Deuks  o'  Wellingtons  out 
o'  my  puddins  1  Will  your  castor-oil,  an'  your  calomel,  an' 
your  croton,  do  that  1  D'ye  ken  a  medicamentum  that'll  pit 
brains  into  workmen — ?  Non  tribus  Anticyris  I  Tons  o' 
hellebore — acres  o'  straitwaistcoats — a  hall  police-force  o' 
head-doctors  winna  do  it.  Juvat  insanire — this  their  way  is 
their  folly,  as  auld  Benjamin  o'  Tudela  saith  of  the  heathen 
lieigho  I  '  Forty  years  lang  was  he  greivit  wi'  this  genera- 
tion, an'  swore  in  his  wrath  that  they  suldna  enter  into  his 
rest.'  Pulse  ?  tongue  ?  ay,  shak'  your  lugs,  an'  tak'  your  fee. 
and  dinna  keep  auld  folk  out  o'  their  graves.     Can  ye  sinn'  ]" 

The  doctor  meekly  confessed  his  inability. 

"  That's  pity — or  I'd  gar  ye  sing  Auld-lang-syne, — 

We  twa  hae  paidlit  in  the  burn — 
Aweel,  aweel,  aweel — " 

Weary  and  solemn  was  that  long  night,  as  we  sat  there, 
with  the  crushing  weight  of  the  morrow  on  our  minds,  watch- 
ing by  that  death-bed,  listening  hour  after  hour  to  the  ram- 
bling soliloquies  of  the  old  man,  as  '  he  babbled  of  green 
fields  ;'  yet  I  verily  believe  that  to  all  of  us,  especially  to  poor 
little  Katie,  the  active  present  interest  of  tending  him,  kept 
us  from  going  all  but  mad  with  anxiety  and  excitement. 
But  it  was  weary  work  :  and  yet,  too,  strangely  interesting, 
as  at  times  there  came  scraps  of  old  Scotch  love-poetry,  con- 
trasting sadly  with  the  grim  lips  that  uttered  them — hints  to 
me  of  some  sorrow  long  since  suilered,  but  never  healed.  I 
had  never  heard  him  allude  to  such  an  event  before  but  once, 
on  the  first  day  of  our  acquaintance. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.        301 

"  I  went  to  the  kirk, 
My  luvc  sat  afore  me ; 
I  trow  my  twa  een 
Tauld  him  a  sweet  story. 
Aye  wakiii  o' — 
AVakin  aye  and  weary — 
I  thocht  a'  the  kirk 
Saw  me  an'  my  deary. 

'Aye  wakiii  o'  I' — Do  ye  think,  noo,  we  sail  ha'  knowledge  m 
the  next  warld  o'  them  we  loved  on  eath  ]  I  askit  that  same 
o'  Rab  Burns  ance,  sitting  up  a'  canty  at  Tibbie  Shiel's  in 
Meggot  Vale,  an'  he  said,  puir  chiel,  he  '  didna  ken  ower  well, 
we  maun  bide  and  see  ;' — bide  and  see — that's  the  gran'  phi- 
losophy o'  life,  after  a'.  Aiblins  folk  '11  ken  their  true  freens 
there;  an'  there  '11  be  na  mair  luve  coft  and  sauld  for  siller — 

Gear  and  tocher  is  needit  nane 

I'  the  country  whaur  my  luve  is  ganc. 

Gin  I  had  a  true  freen  the  noo  I  to  gang  down  the  wynd,  an' 
find  if  it  war  but  an  auld  Abraham  o'  a  blue-gown,  wi'  a  bit 
crowd,  or  a  fizzle-pipe,  to  play  ine  the  Bush  aboon  Traquairl 
Na,  na,  na ;  it's  singing  the  Lord's  song  iu  a  strange  land, 
that  wad  be ;  an'  I  hope  the  application's  no  irreverent,  for 
ane  that  was  rearit  amang  the  hills  o'  God,  an'  the  trees  o' 
the  forest  which  lie  hath  planted. 

Oh  the  broom,  an'  the  bonny  yellow  broom, 
The  broom  o'  the  Cowden-knowes  ! 

Hech,  but  she  wud  lilt  that  bonnily  1 Did  ye  ever  gang 

listering  saumons  by  nicht  ?  Ou,  but  it's  braw  sport,  wi'  the 
Bears  an'  the  birks  a'  glowering  out  blude-red  i'  the  torch- 
light,   and    the   bonnic   hizzies   skelping  an'  skirling   on   the 

bank There  was  a  gran'  leddy,  a  bonny  leddy,  cam' 

in  and  talked  like  an  angel  o'  God  to  puir  auld  Sandy,  anent 
the  salvation  o'  his  soul.  But  I  tauld  her  no'  to  fash  hersel'. 
It's  no  my  view  o'  human  life,  that  a  man's  sent  into  the 
warld  just  to  save  his  soul,  an'  creep  out  again.  An'  I  said 
I  wad  leave  the  savin'  o'  my  soul  to  Him  that  made  my  soul ; 
it  was  in  richt  gude  keepin'  there  I'd  warrant.  An'  then  she 
was  unco  fleyed  when  she  found  I  didna  baud  wi'  the  Athan- 
asian  creed  An'  I  tauld  her,  na' ;  if  He  that  died  on  the  cross 
was  sic  a  ane  as  she  and  I  teuk  him  to  be,  there  was  na  that 
pride  nor  spite  in  him,  be  sure,  to  send  a  pure  auld  sinful, 
guideless  body  to  eternal  fire,  because  he  didna  a'thegither  un- 
derstand the  honor  due  to  His  name." 


302  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Who  was  this  lady  ?" 

He  did  not  seem  to  know ;  and  Katie  had  never  heard  ol 
her  hefore — "  some  district  visitor"  or  other  1 

"  I  sair  misdoubt  but  the  auld  creeds  are  in  the  right  anent 
Him,  after  a*.  I'd  gie  muclde  to  think  it — there's  na  comfort 
as  it  is.  Aibhns  there  might  be  a  wee  comfort  in  that,  for  a 
poor  auld  worn-out  patriot.  But  it's  ower  late  to  change.  I 
tauld  her  that,  too,  ance.  It's  ower  late  to  put  new  wine 
into  auld  bottles.  I  was  imco  drawn  to  the  high  doctrines 
ance,  when  I  was  a  bit  laddie,  an'  sat  in  the  wee  kirk  by  my 
minnie  an'  my  daddie — a  I'icht  stei'n  auld  Cameronian  sort  o' 
body  he  was,  too;  but  as  I  grew,  and  grew,  the  bed  was  ower 
short  for  a  man  to  stretch  himsel'  thereon,  an'  the  plaidie  ower 
strait  for  a  man  to  fauld  himsel'  therein ;  and  so  I  had  to  gang 
my  gate  a'  naked  in  the  matter  o'  formula?,  as  Maister  Tum- 
mas  has  it." 

"  Ah  I  do  send  for  a  priest,  or  a  clergyman  !"  said  Katie, 
who  partly  understood  his  meaning, 

"  Parson  ]  He  canna  pit  new  skin  on  auld  scars.  Na  bit 
stickit  curate-laddie  for  me,  to  gang  argumentin'  wi'  ane  that's 
auld  enough  to  be  his  gran'father.  When  the  parsons  will 
hear  me  anent  God's  people,  then  I'll  hear  them  anent  God. 

Sae  I'm  wearinjj  awa,  Jean, 

To  the  land  o'  the  leal — 

Gin  I  ever  get  thither.  Katie,  here,  hands  wi'  purgatory,  ye 
ken ;  where  souls  are  burnt  clean  again — like  baccy-pipe — 

When  Razor-brigg  is  ower  and  past, 

Every  night  and  alle  ; 
To  Whinny  Muir  thou  comest  at  last, 

And  God  receive  thy  sawle. 

Gin  hosen  an'  shoon  thou  gavest  nane 

Every  night  and  alle  ; 
The  whins  shall  pike  thee  intil  the  bane, 

And  God  receive  thy  sawle. 

Amen.  There's  mair  things  aboon,  as  well  as  below,  than 
are  dreamt  o'  in  our  philosophy.  At  least,  where'er  I  go,  I'll 
meet  no  long-nose,  nor  short-nose,  nor  snub-nose  patriots  there  ; 
nor  puir  gowks  stealing  the  deil's  tools  to  do  God's  wark  wi'. 
Out  among  the  eternities  an'  the  realities — it's  no  that  dreary 
outlook,  after  a',  to  find  truth  an'  fact — naught  but  truth  an' 
fact — e'en  beside  the  worm  that  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  thai 
is  n  >t  quenched  1" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  303 

"  God  forbid  I"  said  Katie. 

"  God  do  whatsoever  shall  please  Him,  Katie — an'  that's 
aye  gude,  like  Ilimsel'.  Shall  no  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth 
do  right — right — right  ?" 

And  murmuring  that  word  of  words  to  himself,  over  and 
over,  more  and  more  faintly,  he  turned  slowly  over,  and  seem- 
ed to  slumber — 

Some  half-hour  passed  before  we  tried  to  stir  him.  He 
was  dead. 

And  the  candles  waned  gray,  and  the  great  light  streamed 
in  through  every  crack  and  cranny,  and  the  s\in  had  risen  on 
the  Tenth  of  April  What  would  be  done  before  that  sua 
had  set  ? 

What  would  be  done  1  Just  what  we  had  the  might  to 
do  ;  and  therefore,  according  to  the  formula  on  which  we 
were  about  to  act,  that  mights  are  rights,  just  what  we  had 
the  right  to  do — nothing.  Futility,  absurdity,  vanity,  and 
vexation  of  spirit.  I  shall  make  my  next  a  short  chapter. 
It  is  a  day  to  be  forgotten — and  forgiven. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

THE  TENTH  OF  APRIL. 

And  he  was  gone  at  last!  Kind  women,  whom  Ins  i.n- 
known  charities  had  saved  from  shame,  laid  him  out  duly, 
and  closed  his  eyes,  and  bound  up  that  face  that  never  would 
beam  again  with  genial  humor,  those  lips  that  would  never 
again  speak  courage  and  counsel  to  the  sinful,  the  oppressed- 
^the  forgotten.  And  there  he  lay,  the  old  warrior  dead  upon 
his  shield  ;  worn  out  by  long  years  of  manful  toil  in  The 
People's  Cause;  and,  saddest  thought  of  all,  by  disappoint- 
ment in  those  for  whom  he  spent  his  soul.  True,  he  was 
aged  ;  no  one  knew  how  old.  He  had  said,  more  than  eight v 
years  ;  but  we  had  shortened  his  life,  and  we  knew  it.  Pie 
would  never  see  that  deliverance  for  which  he  had  been  toil- 
ing ever  since  the  days  when  as  a  boy  he  had  listened  1o 
Tooke  and  Cartwright,  and  the  patriarchs  of  the  people's 
freedom.  Bitter,  bitter,  were  our  thoughts,  and  bitter  were 
our  tears,  as  Crossthwaite  and  I  stood  watching  that  beloved 
face,  now  in  deatli  refined  to  a  grandeur,  to  a  youthful  sim- 
plicity and  delicacy,  -which  we  had  never  seen  on  it  before — 
calm  and  strong — the  square  jaws  set  firm  even  in  death — 
the  lower  lip  still  clenched  above  the  upper,  as  if  in  a  divine 
indignation  and  everlasting  protest,  even  in  the  grave,  against 
the  devoui-ers  of  the  earth.  Yes,  he  was  gone — the  old  lion, 
worn  out  with  many  M'ounds,  dead  in  his  cage.  Where  could 
we  replace  him  ?  There  were  gallant  men  among  us,  eloquent, 
well-read,  earnest — men  whose  names  will  ring  through  this 
land  ere  long — men  who  had  been  taught  wisdom,  even  as  he, 
by  the  sinfulness,  the  apathy,  the  ingratitude,  as  well  as  by 
the  sufierings  of  their  fellows.  But  where  should  we  two 
find  again  the  learning,  the  moderation  the  long  experience, 
above  all  the  more  than  woman's  tenderness  of  him  whom 
we  had  lost?  And  at  that  time,  too,  of  all  others!  Alas! 
we  had  despised  his  counsel ;  wayward  and  fierce,  we  would 
have  none  of  his  reproof;  and  now  God  had  withdrawn  him 
from  us  ;  the  riglUeous  was  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come. 
For  we  knew  that  evil  was  coming.  We  felt  all  along  that 
we  should  not  sncceed.  But  we  were  desperate  ;  and  his 
death  made  us  more  desperate  ;  still  at  the  moment  it  drew 
us  nearer  to  each  otli  yr.      Yes — we  were  rudderless  upon  a 


ALTON   LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  30c 

ioaiin<r  sea,  and  all  before  us  blank  witli  lurid  blinding  mist ; 
but  still  we  were  together,  to  live  and  die ;  and  as  we  looked 
into  each  other's  eyes,  and  clasped  each  other's  hands  above 
the  dead  man's  face,  we  felt  that  there  was  love  between  us, 
as  of  Jonathan  and  David,  passing  the  love  of  woman. 

Few  words  passed.  Even  our  passionate  artisan-nature,  so 
sensitive  and  voluble  in  general,  in  comparison  with  the  cold 
reserve  of  the  field-laboi'er  and  the  gentleman,  was  hushed  in 
silent  awe  between  the  thought  of  the  past  and  the  thought 
of  the  future.  AVe  felt  ourselves  trembling  between  two 
worlds.  We  felt  that  to-morrow  must  decide  our  destiny — 
and  we  felt  rightly,  though  little  M'c  guessed  what  that  des- 
tiny would  be  I 

But  it  was  time  to  go.  We  had  to  prepare  for  the  meet- 
ing. We  must  be  at  Kenningtou  Common  within  three 
hours  at  furthest ;  and  Crossthwaite  hurried  away,  leaving 
Katie  and  me  to  watch  the  dead. 

And  then  came  across  me  the  thought  of  another  deathbed 
— my  mother's — How  she  had  lain  and  lain,  while  I  was 
far  away — And  then  I  vi'ondered  w^hether  she  had  suflered 
much,  or  faded  away  at  last  in  a  peaceful  sleep,  as  he  had — 
And  then  I  wondered  how  her  corpse  had  looked  ;  and  pic- 
tured it  to  myself,  lying  in  the  little  old  room,  day  after  day  till 
they  screwed  the  coffin  down — before  I  came  ! — Cruel  I  Did 
she  look  as  calm,  as  grand  in  death,  as  he  who  lay  there  ? 
And  as  I  watched  the  old  man's  features,  I  seemed  to  trace 
in  them  the  strangest  likeness  to  my  mother's.  The  strangest 
likeness  I  I  could  not  shake  it  off.  It  became  intense — 
miraculous.  Was  it  she,  or  was  it  he,  who  lay  there  ?  I 
shook  myself  and  rose.  My  loins  ached,  my  hmbs  were  heavy, 
my  brain  and  eyes  swam  round.  I  must  be  over-fatigued  by 
excitement  and  sleeplessness.  I  would  go  down-stairs  into  the 
fresh  air,  and  shake  it  off. 

As  I  came  down  the  passage,  a  woman,  dressed  in  black, 
was  standing  at  the  door,  speaking  to  one  of  the  lodgers. 
"  And  he  is  dead  !  Oh,  if  I  had  but  known  sooner  that  he 
was  even  ill  I" 

That  voice — that  figure — surely,  I  knew  them  ! — them,  at' 
least,  there  was  no  mistaking  I  Or  was  it  another  phantom 
of  my  disordered  brain  1  I  pushed  forward  to  the  door,  and 
as  I  did  so  she  turned,  and  our  eyes  met  full.  It  was  she — 
Lady  Ellerton  I  sad,  worn,  transformed  by  widow's  weeds, 
but  that  face  was  like  no  other's  still.  Why  did  I  drop  my 
eyes  and  draw  back  at  the  first  glance  like  a  guilty  coward  ? 


306  A7.T0N  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

She  beckoned  me  toward  her,  went  out  into  the  street,  and 
herself  began  the  conversation,  from  which  I  shrank,  1 
know  not  why. 

"  When  did  he  die  ?"' 

"  Just  at  sunrise  this  morning.  But  how  came  you  here 
to  visit  him  ?  Were  you  the  lady,  who,  as  he  said,  came  to 
him  a  few  days  since  1" 

She  did  not  answer  my  question.  "  At  sunrise  this  morn 
ing  ?  A  fitting  time  ibr  him  to  die,  before  he  sees  the  ruin 
and  disgrace  of  those  for  whom  he  labored.  And  you,  too,  I 
hear,  are  taking  your  share  in  this  projected  madness  and 
iniquity  ?" 

"What  right  have  you,"  I  asked,  bristling  up  at  a  sudden 
suspicion  that  crossed  me,  "  to  use  such  words  about  me?" 

"  Recollect,"  she  answered,  mildly  but  firmly,  "  your  con- 
duct three  years  ago  at  D ." 

"  What,"  I  said,  "  was  it  not  proved  upon  my  trial,  that  I 
exerted  all  my  poM^ers,  endangered  my  very  life  to  prevent 
outrage  in  that  case  1" 

"It  was  proved  upon  your  trial,"  she  replied,  in  a  marked 
tone ;  "  but  we  were  informed,  and,  alas  1  from  authority  only 
loo  good,  namely,  from  that  of  an  ear- witness,  of  the  sanguin- 
ary and  ferocious  language  which  you  were  not  afraid  to  use 
at  the  meeting  in  London,  only  two  nights  before  the  riot." 

I  turned  white  with  rage  and  indignation. 

"  Tell  me,"  I  said — "  tell  me  if  you  have  any  honor,  who 
dared  forge  such  an  atrocious  calumny  I  No  I  you  need  not 
tell  me.  I  see  well  enough  now.  He  should  have  told  you 
that  I  exposed  myself  that  night  to  insult,  not  by  advocating, 
but  by  opposing  violence,  as  I  have  always  done — as  I  would 
now,  were  not  I  desperate — hopeless  of  any  other  path  to 
liberty.  And  as  for  this  coming  struggle,  have  I  not  written 
to  my  cousin,  humiliating  as  it  was  to  me,  to  beg  him  to  warn 
you  all  from  me,  lest — " 

I  could  not  finish  the  sentence. 

"  You  wrote  ]  He  has  warned  us,  but  he  never  mentioned 
your  name.  He  spoke  of  his  knowledge  as  having  been  pick- 
ed up  by  himself  at  personal  risk  to  his  clerical  character." 

"  The  I'isk,  I  presume,  of  being  known  to  have  actually  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  a  Chartist ;  but  I  MTote — on  my  honor  I 
wrote — a  week  ago  ;   and  received  no  M'ord  of  answer." 

"  Is  this  true?"  she  asked. 

"A  man  is  not  likely  to  deal  in  useless  falsehoods,  who 
knows  not  whether  ho  shall  live  to  see  the  set  of  sun  I" 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  307 

"  Then  you  are  implicated  in  this  expected  insurrection  ?" 

"  I  am  imphoated,"  I  answered,  "with  the  people;  what 
they  do  I  shall  do.  Those  Avho  once  called  themselves  th(; 
patrons  of  the  tailor-poet,  left  the  mistaken  enthusiast,  to 
languish  for  three  years  in  prison,  without  a  sign,  a  hint  of 
mercy,  pity,  remembrance.  Society  has  cast  me  off;  and,  in 
casting  me  oil',  it  has  sent  me  oiT  to  my  own  people,  whciu 
1  should  have  staid  I'rom  the  beginning.  Now  I  am  at  my 
post,  because  1  am  among  my  cla.ss.  If  they  triumph  peace- 
i'ully,  I  triumph  with  them.  If  they  need  blood  to  gain  theii 
rights,  be  it  so.  Let  the  blood  be  upon  the  head  of  those  who 
reluse,  not  those  who  demand.  At  least,  I  shall  be  with  my 
own  people.  And  if  I  die,  what  better  thing  on  earth  can 
happen  to  me  ?" 

"  But  the  law  ?"  she  said. 

"  Do  not  talk  to  me  of  law  !  I  know  it  too  well  in  practice  , 
to  be  moved  by  any  theories  about  it.  Laws  are  no  law,  but  : 
tyranny,  when  the  few  make  them,  in  order  to  oppress  the  ; 
many  by  them."  j 

"  Oh!"  she  said,  in  a  voice  of  passionate  earnestness,  which 
I  had  never  heard  from  her  before,  "  stop — for  God's  sake, 
stop  I  You  know  not  what  you  are  saying — what  you  are 
doing.  Oh  !  that  I  had  met  you  before — that  I  had  had  more 
tiiiK!  to  speak  to  poor  Mackaye  1  Oh  !  wait,  wait — there  is  a 
deliverance  for  you!  but  never  in  this  path — never.  And  just  j 
while  I,  and  nobler  far  than  I,  are  longing  and  strugghng  to 
find  the  means  of  telling  you  your  deliverance,  you,  in  the 
madness  of  your  haste,  are  making  it  impossible  I" 

There  was  a  wild  sincerity  in  her  words — an  almost  im 
ploring  tenderness  in  her  tone. 

"  So  young  I"  she  said  ;  "  so  young  to  be  lost  thus  I" 

I  was  intensely  moved.  I  felt,  I  knew  that  she  had  a 
message  for  me.  I  felt  that  hers  was  the  only  intellect  in  the 
world  to  which  I  would  have  submitted  mine  ;  and,  for  one 
moment,  all  the  angel,  and  all  the  devil  in  me  wrestled  for 
the   mastery.      If  I    could   but   have   trusted   her  one   mo 

ment No !  all  the  pride,  the  spite,  the  suspicion,  the 

prejudice  of  years,  rolled  back  upon  me.  "  An  aristocrat ! 
and  she,  too,  the  one  who  has  kept  me  from  Lillian  I"  And 
in  my  bitterness,  not  daring  to  speak  the  real  thought  within 
me,  I  answered  with  a  flippant  sneer, 

"  Yes,  madam  I  like  Cordelia,  so  young,  yet  so  untender  ! 
Thanks  to  the  mercies  of  the  upper  classes!" 

Did   she  turn  away  in   indignation  ?     No,  by  Heaven ' 


308  ALTON  LOCKt;,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

there  was  nothing  upon  her  face  but  the  intensest  yearniug 
pity.  Tf  she  had  spoken  again,  she  would  have  conquered; 
but  before  those  perfect  lips  could  open,  the  thought  of 
thoughts  flashed  across  me. 

"  Tell  me  one  thing !  Is  my  cousin  George  to  be  married 
to "  and  I  stopped. 

"  lie  is." 

"And  yet,"  I  said,  "you  wish  to  turn  me  back  from  dying 
on  a  barricade  I"  And  without  waiting  for  a  reply,  I  hurried 
down  the  street  in  all  the  fury  of  despair. 

I  have  promised  to  say  little  about  the  tenth  of  April,  foi 
indeed  I  have  no  heart  to  do  so.  Every  one  of  Mackaye'a 
predictions  came  true.  We  had  arrayed  against  us,  by  oui 
own  folly,  the  very  physical  force  to  which  we  had  appealed. 
The  dread  of  general  plunder  and  outrage  by  the  savages 
of  London,  the  national  hatred  of  that  French  and  Irish  in- 
terference of  which  we  had  boasted,  armed  against  us  thou- 
sands of  special  constables,  who  had  in  the  abstract  little  or 
no  objection  to  our  political  opinions.  The  practical  common 
sense  of  England,  whatever  discontent  it  might  feel  with  the 
existing  system,  refused  to  let  it  be  hurled  rudely  down,  on 
the  mere  chance  of  building  up  on  its  ruins  something  as  yet 
untried,  and  even  undefined.  Above  all,  the  people  would 
not  rise.  Whatever  sympathy  they  had  with  us,  they  did 
not  care  to  show  it.  And  then  futility  after  futility  exposed 
itself  The  meeting  which  was  to  have  been  counted  by 
hundreds  of  thousands,  numbered  hardly  its  tens  of  thousands ; 
and  of  them  a  frightful  proportion  M'cre  of  those  very  rascal- 
classes,  against  whom  we  ourselves  had  oflered  to  be  sworn 
in  as  special  constables.  O'Connor's  courage  failed  him  after 
all.  He  contrived  to  be  called  away,  at  the  critical  moment, 
by  some  problematical  superintendent  of  police.  Poor  Cufley, 
the  honestest,  if  not  the  wisest,  speaker  there,  leaped  off^  the 
wagon,  exclaiming  that  Ave  were  all  "humbugged  and  be- 
trayed ;"  and  the  meeting  broke  up  pitiably  piecemeal,  drench- 
ed and  cowed,  body  and  soul,  by  pouring  rain  on  its  way 
home — for  the  very  heavens  mercifully  helped  to  quench  our 
folly — while  the  monster-petition  crawled  ludicrously  away  in 

1a  hack  cab,  to  be  dragged  to  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons amid  roars  of  laughter — "  inextinguishable  laughter,'" 
as  of  Tennyson's  Epicurean  Gods. 

Careless  of  mankind. 
For  they  lie  beside  their  nectar,  and  their  bolts  are  hurled 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  309 

Far  below  them  in  the  valleys,  and  the  clouds  are  lightly  curled 
Round  their  golden  houses,  girdled  with  the  gleaming  world. 
There  they  smile  in  secret,  looking  over  wasted  lands, 
Blight  and  famine,  plague  and  earthquake,  roaring  deeps  and  llery 

sands, 
Clanging  fights,  and  flaming  towns,  and  sinking  ships,  and  praying 

hands. 
But  they  smile,  they  find  a  music,  centred  in  a  doleful  song, 
Steaming  up,  a  lamentation,  and  an  ancient  tale  of  wrong, 
Like  a  tale  of  little  meaning,  though  the  xvords  are  strong  ; 
Chanted  by  an  ill-used  race  of  men  that  cleave  the  soil, 
Sow  the  seed  and  reap  the  harvest  with  enduring  toil, 
Storing  little  yearly  dues  of  wheat,  and  wine,  and  oil; 
Till  they  perish,  and  they  suffer — some,  'tis  whispered,  down  in  hell 
Suffer  endless  anguish  ! — 

Truly — truly,  great  poete'  words  are  vaster  than  the  singtis 
themselves  suppose  I 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

THE   LOWEST  DEEP. 

Sullen,  disappointed,  desperate,  I  strode  along  the  street! 
that  evening,  careless  whither  I  went.  The  people's  cause 
was  lost — the  Charter  a  laughing-stock.  That  the  party 
which  monopolizes  wealth,  rank,  and,  as  it  fancied,  educa- 
tion and  intelligence,  should  have  been  driven,  degraded,  to 
appeal  to  brute  force  for  self-defense — that  thought  gave  mc 
a  savage  joy  ;  but  that  it  should  have  conquered  by  that  last, 
lowest  resource  I  That  the  few  should  be  still  stronger  than 
the  many;  or  the  many  still  too  cold-hearted  and  coward  to 
face  the  few — that  sickened  me.  I  hated  the  well-born 
young  special  constables  whom  I  passed,  because  they  Avould 
have  fought.  I  hated  the  gent  and  shopkeeper  special  con 
stables,  because  they  would  have  run  away.  I  hated  my 
own  party,  because  they  had  gone  too  far — because  they  had 
not  gone  far  enough.  1  hated  myself,  because  I  had  not  pro- 
duced some  marvelous  effect — though  what  that  was  tc 
have  been  I  could  not  tell — and  hated  myself  all  the  more  for 
that  ignorance. 

A  group  of  effeminate  shopkeepers  passed  me,  shouting 
"God  save  the  Queen!"  "  Hypocrites  I"  I  cried  in  my 
heart — they  mean  "  God  save  our  shops  !"  Liars  I  They 
keep  up  willingly  the  useful  calumny,  that  their  slaves  and 
victims  are  disloyal  as  well  as  miserable  I 

I  was  utterly  abased — no,  not  utterly  ;  for  my  self-contempt 
still  vented  itself — not  in  forgiveness,  but  in  universal  hatred 
and  defiance.  Suddenly  I  perceived  my  cousin,  laughing  and 
jesting  with  a  party  of  fashionable  young  specials :  I  shrank 
iVom  him ;  and  yet,  I  know  not  why,  drew  as  near  him  as  I 
could,  unobserved — near  enough  to  catch  the  words, 

"  Upon  my  honor,  Locke,  I  believe  you  are  a  Chartist 
yourself  at  heart." 

"  At  least  I  am  no  Communist,"  said  he,  in  a  significant 
tone.  "There  is  one  little  bit  of  I'eal  property  which  I  have 
Qo  intention  of  sharing  with  my  neighbors." 

"  What,  the  little  beauty  somewhere  near  Cavendish- 
8q?iare  ?" 

"That's  my  businese." 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  311 

"  Whereby  you  mean  that  you  are  on  your  way  to  her  now  ? 
Well,  I  am  invited  to  the  Avedding,  remember." 

He  pushed  on,  laughingly,  without  answering.  I  followed 
him  fast — "  near  Cavendish-square  I" — the  very  part  of  the 
town  where  Lillian  lived !  I  had  had,  as  yet,  a  horror  of  going 
near  it ;  but  now,  an  intolerable  suspicion  scourged  me  for- 
ward, and  I  dogged  his  steps,  hiding  behind  pillars,  and  at 
the  corners  of  streets,  and  then  running  on,  till  I  got  sight  of 
him  again.  He  went  through  Cavendish-square,  up  Harley- 
street — was  it  possible  1  I  gnashed  my  teeth  at  the  thought. 
But  it  must  be  so.  He  stopped  at  the  dean's  house,  knocked, 
and  entered,  without  parley. 

In  a  minute  I  was  breatliless  on  the  door-step,  and  knocked. 
I  had  no  plan,  no  object,  except  the  wild  wish  to  see  my  own 
despair.  I  never  thought  of  the  chances  of  being  recognized 
by  the  servants,  or  of  any  thing  else,  except  of  Lillian  by  my 
cousin's  side. 

The  footman  came  out  smiling.      "  What  did  I  want  ?" 

"  I_I_Mr.  Locke." 

"  Well,  you  needn't  be  in  such  a  hurry  :"  (with  a  signifi- 
cant grin).  "  JNIr.  Locke's  likely  to  be  busy  for  a  few  minutes, 
yet,  I  expect  I" 

Evidently  the  man  did  not  know  me. 

"  Tell  him  that — that  a  person  wishes  to  speak  to  him  on 
particular  business."  Though  I  had  no  more  notion  what 
that  business  was  than  the  man  himself 

"  Sit  down  in  the  hall." 

And  I  heard  the  fellow,  a  moment  afterward,  gossiping  and 
laughing  with  the  maids  below  about  "  the  young  couple." 

To  sit  down  was  impossible  ;  my  only  thought  was — where 
was  Lillian  ? 

Voices  in  an  adjoining  room  caught  my  ear.  His  I  yes — 
and  hers  too — soft  and  low.  What  devil  prompted  me  to 
turn  eavesdropper  ;  to  run  headlong  into  temptation  ?  I  was 
close  to  the  dining-room  door,  but  they  were  not  there — evi- 
dently they  were  in  the  back  room,  which,  as  I  knew,  opened 
into  it  with  folding  doors.  I — I  must  confess  all.  Noiselessly, 
with  craft  like  a  madman's,  I  turned  the  handle,  slipped  in  as 
stealthily  as  a  cat — the  folding-doors  were  slightly  open.  I 
had  a  view  of  all  that  passed  within.  A  horrible  fascination 
seemed  to  keep  my  eyes  fixed  on  them,  in  spite  of  myself. 
Honor,  shame,  despair,  bade  me  turn  away,  but  in  vain. 

I  saw  them.  How  can  I  write  it  ?  Yet  I  will.  I  saw 
Ihem  sitting  together  on  the  sofa.     Their  arms  were  round 


6l-i  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

each  other.  Her  head  lay  upon  his  breast ;  he  bent  over  hei 
with  an  intense  gaze,  as  of  a  basiHsk,  I  thought  ;  how  do  1 
know  that  it  was  not  the  fierceness  of  his  love  ?  Who  could 
have  helped  loving  her  ? 

Suddenly  she  raised  her  head,  and  looked  up  in  his  face — 
her  eyes  brimming  with  tenderness,  her  cheeks  burning  with 
mingled  delight  and  modesty — their  lips  met,  and  clung  togeth- 
er   It  seemed  a  life — an  eternity — before  they  parted 

again.  Then  the  spell  was  broken,  and  I  rushed  from  the 
room. 

Faint,  giddy,  and  blind,  I  just  recollect  leaning  against  the 
wall  of  the  staircase.  He  came  hastily  out,  and  started  as 
he  saw  me.     My  face  told  all. 

"What'?  Eavesdropping?"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  imuttera- 

ble  scorn.     I  answered  nothing,  but  looked  stupidly  and  fixedly 

in  his  face,  while  he  glared  at  me  with  that  keen,  burning, 

\ntolerable  eye.      I  longed  to  spring  at  his  throat,  but  that 

eye  held  me  as  the  snake's  holds  the  deer.     At  last  I  found 

words. 

U'     "Traitor  I  every  where — in  every  thing — tricking  me — 

<\  supplanting  me — in  ray  friends — in  my  love  I" 

I  "Your  love?     Yours?"     And  the  fixed  eye  still  glared 

•^upon  me.     "  Listen,  cousin  Alton  I     The  strong  and  the  weak 

have  been  matched  for  the  same  prize :  and  what  wonder, 

I      j  if  the  strong  man  conquers  1     Go  and  ask  Lillian  Aow  she 

{  likes  the  thought  of  being  a  Communist's  love  I" 
i^^  As  when,  in  a  nightmare,  we  try  by  a  desperate  efibrt  to 
break  the  spell,  I  sprang  forward,  and  struck  at  him  ;  he  put 
my  hand  by  carelessly,  and  felled  me  bleeding  to  the  ground. 
I  recollect  hardly  any  thing  more,  till  I  found  myself  thrust 
into  the  street  by  sneering  footmen,  and  heard  them  call  after 
me  "  Chartist"  and  "  Communist"  as  I  rushed  along  the  pave- 
ment, careless  where  I  went. 

I  strode  and  staggered  on  through  street  after  street,  run- 
ning blindly  against  passengers,  dashing  under  horses'  heads, 
heedless  of  warnings  and  execrations,  till  I  found  myself,  I 
know  not  how,  on  Waterloo  Bridge.  I  had  meant  to  go  thero 
when  I  left  the  door.  I  knew  that  at  least — and  now  I  wa.s 
there. 

I  buried  myself  in  a  recess  of  the  bridge,  and  stared  around 
and  up  and  down. 

I  was  alone — deserted  even  by  myself.  Mother,  sister, 
friends,  love,  the  idol  of  my  life,  were  all  gone.  I  could  have 
borne  that.     But  to  be  shamed,  and  know  that  I  deserved 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT.  313 

it  ;  to  be  deserted  by  my  own  honor,  self-respect,  strength  of 
will — who  can  bear  that  ? 

I  could  have  borne  it,  had  one  thing  been  left.  Faith  in 
my  own  destiny — the  inner  hope  that  God  had  called  me  to 
do  a  work  for  him. 

"What  drives  the  Frenchman  to  suicide?"  I  asked  my- 
self, arguing  ever  even  in  the  face  of  death  and  hell  :  "  His 
faith  in  nothing  but  his  own  lusts  and  pleasures  ;  and  when 
they  are  gone,  then  comes  the  pan  of  charcoal — and  all  is 
ever.  AVhat  drives  the  German?  His  faith  in  nothing  but 
his  own  brain.  He  has  fallen  down  and  -worshiped  that 
miserable  '  Ich'  of  his,  and  made  that,  and  not  God's  will, 
the  centre  and  root  of  his  philosophy,  his  poetry,  and  his  sell- 
idolizing  aesthetics  ;  and  M'hen  it  fails  him,  then  for  prussic 
acid,  and  nonentity.  Those  old  Romans,  too — why,  they  are 
the  very  experimentum  crucis  of  suicide  I  As  long  as  they 
fancied  that  they  had  a  calling  to  serve  the  state,  they  could 
live  on  and  suffer.  But  when  they  found  no  more  work  left 
(or  them,  then  they  could  die — as  Portia  died — as  Cato — as 
I  ought.  What  is  there  left  for  me  to  do?  outcast,  disgraced, 
useless,  decrepit — " 

I  looked  out  over  the  bridge  into  the  desolate  night.  Be- 
low me  the  dark  moaning  river-eddies  hurried  downward. 
The  wild  west-wind  howled  past  me,  and  leaped  over  the 
parapet  downward.  The  huge  reflection  of  Saint  Paul's,  the 
great  tap-roots  of  light  from  lamp  and  window  that  shone 
upon  the  lurid  stream,  pointed  down — down — down.  A 
black  wherry  shot  through  the  arch  beneath  me,  still  and 
smoothly  downward.  My  brain  began  to  whirl  madly — I 
sprang  upon  the  step.  A  man  rushed  past  me,  clambered  on 
the  parapet,  and  threw  up  his  arms  wildly.  A  moment 
more,  and  he  would  have  leaped  into  the  stream.  The  sight 
recalled  me  to  my  senses — say,  rather,  it  re-awoke  in  me  the 
spirit  of  mankind.  I  seized  him  by  the  arm,  tore  him  down 
upon  the  pavement,  and  held  him,  in  spite  of  his  frantic 
struggles.  It  was  Jemmy  Downos  I  Gaunt,  ragged,  sodden, 
bleai"-eyed,  driveling,  the  worn-out  gin-drinker  stood,  his  mo- 
mentary paroxysm  of  strength  gone,  trembling  and  staggering. 

•'  why  won't  you  let  a  cove  die  ?  Why  won't  you  let  a 
cove  die  ?  They're  all  dead — drunk,  and  poisoned,  and 
dead  I  What  is  there  left?"  he  burst  out  suddenly  in  hia 
old  ranting  style,  "  what  is  there  left  on  earth  to  live  for  ? 
The  prayers  of  liberty  are  answerer  by  the  laughter  of 
tyrants ;  her  sun  is  sunk  beneath  th'  ocean  wave,  and  hei 

O 


314  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

pipe  put  out  by  the  raging  billows  of  aristocracy  I  Those 
starving  millions  of  Kennington.  Common — where  are  they  ? 
Where  ?  I  axes  you,"  he  cried  fiercely,  raising  his  voice  to  a 
womanish  scream,  "  where  are  they  ?" 

"  Gone  home  to  bed,  like  sensible  people ;  and  you  had 
better  go  too." 

"  Bed  ?  I  sold  ours  a  month  ago  ;  but  we'll  go,  Come  alonr 
and  I'll  show  you  my  wife  and  family ;  and  we'll  have  a  tea 
party — Jacob's  Island  tea.     Come  along  I 

Flea,  flea,  unfortunate  flea  ! 

Bereft  of  his  wife  and  his  small  family  !"' 

He  clutched  my  arm,  and  dragging  me  off  toward  tht 
Surrey  side,  turned  down  Stamford-street. 

I  followed  half  perforce  ;  and  the  man  seemed  q«ite  de- 
mented— whether  with  gin  or  sorrow  I  could  not  tell.  As  he 
strode  along  the  pavement,  he  kept  continually  looking  back, 
with  a  perplexed  terrified  air,  as  if  expecting  some  fearful 
object. 

"  The  rats  I  the  rats  I  don't  you  see  'em  coming  out  of  the 
gully  holes,  atween  the  area  railings — dozens  and  dozens  ?" 

"  No  ;  I  saw  none." 

"  You  lie  ;  I  hear  their  tails  whisking  ;  there's  their  shiny 
hats  a  glistening,  and  every  one  on  'em  with  peelers'  staves  I 
Quick  I  quick  I  or  they'll  have  me  to  the  station-house." 

"Nonsense  I"  I  said  ;  "we  are  free  men  I  What  are  the 
policemen  to  us  ?" 

"  You  lie  I"  cried  he,  with  a  fearful  oath,  and  a  wrench  at 
my  arm  which  almost  threw  me  down.  "  Do  you  call  a 
sweater's  man  a  free  man  1" 

"You  a  sweater's  man?" 

"Ay!"  with  another  oath.  "My  men  ran  away- — folks 
said  I  drank,  too ;  but  here  I  am  ;  and  1,  that  sweated  others, 
I'm  sweated  myself — and  I'm  a  slave  I  I'm  a  slave — -a 
negro  slave,  I  am,  you  aristocrat  villain  I" 

"  Mind  me,  Downes  ;  if  you  will  go  quietly,  I  will  go  with 
you  ;  but  if  you  do  not  let  go  of  my  arm,  I  give  you  in  charge 
to  the  first  policeman  I  meet." 

"  Oh,  don't,  don't :"  whined  the  miserable  wretch,  as  he 
almost  fell  on  his  knees,  gin-drinkers'  tears  running  down  his 
face ;  "  or  I  shall  be  too  late.  And  then  the  rats  '11  get  in  at 
the  roof,  and  up  through  the  floor,  and  eat  'em  all  up,  and  my 
work  too — the  grand  new  three-pound  coat  that  I've  been 
fititching  at   this   ten   days,  for   the   sum  of  one  half-crowi> 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  315 

sterling — and  don't  I  wish  I  may  see  the  money  1  Come  on, 
quick ;  there  are  the  rats,  close  behind  I"  And  he  dashed 
across  the  broad  roaring  thoroughfare  of  Bridge-street,  and 
hurrying  almost  at  a  run  down  Tooley-street,  plunged  into 
the  wildernesses  of  Berrnondsey. 

He  stopped  at  the  end  of  a  miserable  blind  alley,  where 
a  dirty  gas-lamp  just  served  to  make  darkness  visible,  and 
show  the  patched  windows  and  rickety  doorways  of  the  crazy 
liouses,  whose  upper  stories  Avere  lost  in  a  brooding  cloud  of 
log;  and  the  pools  of  stagnant  water  at  our  feet;  and  the 
huge  heap  of  cinders  which  filled  up  the  waste  end  of  the 
alley — a  dreary,  black,  formless  mound,  on  which  two  or 
three  spectral  dogs  prowled  up  and  down  after  the  oflial,  ap- 
[learing  and  vanishing  like  dark  imps  in  and  out  of  the  black 
misty  chaos  beyond. 

The  neighborhood  was  undergoing,  as  it  seemed,  ."  improve- 
ments," of  that  peculiar  metropolitan  species  Avhich  consists 
in  pulling  down  the  dwellings  of  the  poor,  and  building  up 
rich  men's  houses  instead  ;  and  great  buildings,  within  high 
temporary  palings,  had  already  eaten  up  half  the  little 
houses ;  as  the  great  fish,  and  the  great  estates,  and  the  great 
shopkeepers,  eat  up  the  little  ones  of  their  species — by  the 
law  of  competition,  lately  discovered  to  be  the  true  creator 
and  preserver  of  the  universe.  There  they  loomed  up,  the 
tall  bullies,  against  the  dreary  sky,  looking  down  with  their 
grim,  proud,  stony  visages,  on  the  misery  which  they  were 
driving  out  of  one  corner,  only  to  accumulate  and  intensify  it 
in  another. 

The  house  at  which  we  stopped  was  the  last  in  the  row  ; 
all  its  companions  had  been  pulled  down  ;  and  there  it  stood, 
leaning  out  with  one  naked  ugly  side  into  the  gap,  and 
stretching  out  long  jirops,  like  feeble  arms  and  crutches,  to 
resist  the  work  of  demolition. 

A  group  of  slatternly  people  were  in  the  entry,  talking 
loudly,  and  as  Downes  pushed  by  them,  a  woman  seized  him 
by  the  arm. 

"  Oh  I  you  unnatural  villain  I — To  go  away  after  youi 
irink,  and  leave  all  them  poor  dear  dead  corpses  locked  up, 
without  even  letting  a  body  go  in  to  stretch  them  out  I" 

"  And  breeding  the  fever,  too,  to  poison  the  whole  house  I"| 
growled  one. 

"  The  relieving  officer's  been  here,  ray  cove,"  said  another  ; 
"and  he's  gone  for  a  peeler  and  a  search  warrant  to  brealf 
open  the  door.  I  can  teU  you  I" 


316 


ALTON  LOCKF..  TAILOR  AND  POET. 


^^^ 


k(M  Y^ 


But  Downes  pushed  past  unheeding,  unlocked  a  doer  at 
the  end  of  the  passage,  thrust  me  in,  locked  it  again,  and 
then  rushed  across  the  room  in  chase  of  two  or  three  rats, 
who  vanished  into  cracks  and  holes. 

And  what  a  room  !  A  low  lean-to  with  wooden  walls, 
without  a  single  article  of  I'urniture  ;  and  through  the  broad 
chinks  of  the  floor  shone  up  as  it  were  ugly  glaring  eyes, 
staring  at  us.  They  Avere  the  reflections  of  the  rushlight  in 
^he  sewer  below.  The  stench  was  frightful — the  air  heavy 
with  pestilence.  The  first  breath  I  drew  made  my  heart 
sink,  and  my  stomach  turn.  But  I  forgot  every  thing  in  the 
object  which  lay  before  me,  as  Downes  tore  a  half-finished 
coat  ofl^ three  corpses  laid  side  by  side  on  the  bare  floor. 
>■  There  was  his  little  Irish  wife  ; — dead — and  naked — the 
r  wasted  white  limbs  gleamed  in  the  lurid  light ;  ;tbe  unclosed 
eyes  stared,  as  if  reproachfully,  at  the  husband  whose  drunk- 
enness had  brought  her  there  to  kill  her  with  the  pestilence; 
and  on  each  side  of  her  a  little,  shriveled,  impish,  child 
corpse — the  wretched  man  had  laid  their  arms  round  the 
dead  mother's  neck — and  there  they  slept,  their  hungering 
\  and  wailing  over  at  last  for  ever  :  the  rats  had  been  busy  al- 
j  ready  with  them — but  what  matter  to  them  now  ? 
"^  "  Look  I"  he  cried  ;  "  I  watched  'em  dying  I  Day  aftev 
day  I  saw  the  devils  come  up  through  the  cracks,  like  little 
maggots  and  beetles,  and  all  manner  of  ugly  things,  creeping 
down  their  throats  ;  and  I  asked  'cm,  and  they  said  they 
were  the  fever  devils." 

It  was  too  true  ;  the  poisonous  exhalations  had  killed 
them.  The  wretched  man's  delirium  tremens  had  given  that 
horrible  substantiality  to  the  poisonous  fever  gases. 

Suddenly  Downes  turned  on  me.  almost  menacingly. 
"  Money  I  money  I     I  want  some  gin  I" 

I  was  thoroughly  terrified — and  there  was  no  shame  iti 
feeling  fear,  locked  up  with  a  madman  far  rny  superior  in 
size  and  strength,  in  so  ghastly  a  place.  But  the  shame,  and 
the  folly  too,  would  have  been  in  giving  way  to  my  fear , 
and  with  a  boldness  half  assumed,  half  the  real  fruit  of  ex- 
citement and  indignation  at  the  horrors  1  beheld,  I  answered— 

"  If  I  had  money,  I  would  give  you  none.  What  do  you 
want  with  gin  ?  Look  at  the  fruits  of  your  accursed  tip- 
pling. If  you  had  taken  my  advice,  my  poor  fellow,  I  went 
on,  gaining  courage  as  I  spoke,  "  and  become  a  water-drinker, 
like  me — " 

"  Curse  you  and  your  waler-drinking  !     If  you  had  had  no 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET.  jl/ 

water  to  drink  or  wash  with  for  two  years  but  that — that," 
pointing  to  the  ibul  ditch  below — "  It"  you  had  emptied  Iho 
slops  in  there  with  one  hand,  and  filled  your  kettle  with  the 
other — " 

"  Do  you  actually  mean  that  that  sewer  is  your  only  drink-^ 
ing  water  ?" 

"  Where  else  can  we  get  any  1  Every  body  drinks  it ; 
and  you  shall,  too — you  shall  I"  he  cried,  with  a  fearful  oath, 
"  and  then  see  if  you  don't  run  off  to  the  gin-shop,  to  take 
the  taste  of  it  out  of  your  mouth.  Drink  ?  and  who  can 
help  drinking,  with  his  stomach  turned  with  such  hell-broth 
as  that — or  such  a  hell's  blast  as  this  air  is  here,  ready  to 
vomit  from  morning  till  night  with  the  smells'?  I'll  show 
you.  You  shall  drink  a  bucket  full  of  it,  as  sure  as  you  live, 
j'ou  shall." 

And  he  ran  out  of  the  back  door,  upon  a  little  balcony, 
which  hung  over  the  ditch. 

I  tried  the  door,  but  the  key  was  gone,  and  the  handle  too. 
I  beat  furiously  on  it,  and  called  ibr  help.  Two  grufl 
authoritative  voices  were  heard  in  the  passage. 

"  Let  us  in  ;  I'm  the  policeman  I" 

"  Let  me  out,  or  mischief  will  happen  I" 

The  pohceman  made  a  vigorous  thrust  at  the  crazy  door  ; 
and  just  as  it  burst  open,  and  the  light  of  his  lantern  streamed 
into  the  horrible  den,  a  heavy  splash  was  heard  outside. 

"  He  has  fallen  into  the  ditch  I" 

"He'll  be  drowned,  then,  as  sure  as  he's  a  born  man," 
shouted  one  of  the  crowd  behind. 

We  rushed  out  on  the  balcony.  The  light  of  the  police-^ 
man's  lantern  glared  over  the  ghastly  scene — along  the  double  \ 
row  of  miserable  house-backs,  which  lined  the  sides  of  the  open 
tidal  ditch — over  strange  rambling  jetties,  and  balconies,  and 
sleeping  sheds,  which  hung  on  rotting  piles  over  the  black 
waters,  with  phosphorescent  scraps  of  rotten  fish  gleaming 
and  twinkling  out  of  the  dark  hollows,  like  devilish  gravelights 
— over  bubbles  of  poisonous  gas,  and  bloated  carcases  of  dogs, 
and  lumps  of  offal,  floating  on  the  stagnant  olive-green  hell- 
broth — over  the  slow  sullen  rows  of  oily  ripple  which  were 
dying  away  into  the  darkness  far  beyond,  sending  up,  as  they 
stirred,  hot  breaths  of  miasma — the  only  sign  that  a  spark  oi 
humanity,  after  years  of  foul  life,  had  quenched  itself  at  last_^ 
in  that  foul  death.  I  almost  fancied  that  I  could  see  the 
haggard  face  staring  up  at  me  through  the  slimy  water ;  but 
no — it  was  as  opaque  as  stone. 


513  ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

I  shuddered  and  went  in  again,  to  see  slatternly  gin-smell- 
•.ng  women  stripping  off  their  clothes — true  women  even  there 
— to  cover  the  poor  naked  corpses ;  and  pointing  to  the 
bruises  which  told  a  tale  of  long  tyranny  and  cruelty  ;  and 
mingling  their  lamentations  with  stories  of  shrieks  and  beat- 
ing, and  children  locked  up  for  hours  to  starve  ;  and  the  men 
looked  on  sullenly,  as  if  they  too  were  guilty,  or  rushed  out  to 
relieve  themselves  by  helping  to  find  the  drowned  body. 
Ugh  I  it  was  the  very  mouth  of  hell,  that  room.  And  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  rout,  the  relieving  officer  stood  impassive,  jot- 
ing  down  scraps  of  information,  and  warning  us  to  appear  the 
next  day,  to  state  what  we  knew  before  the  magistrates. 
Needless  hypocrisy  of  law  I  Too  careless  to  save  the  woman 
and  children  from  brutal  tyranny,  nakedness,  starvation  I — 
Too  superstitious  to  offend  its  idol  of  vested  interests,  by  pro- 
tecting the  poor  man  against  his  tyrants,  the  house-owning 
shopkeepers  under  whose  greed  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  be- 
come nests  of  filth  and  pestilence,  drunkenness  and  degrada- 
tion. Careless,  superstitious,  imbecile  law  I — leaving  the 
victims  to  die  unhelped,  and  then,  when  the  fever  and  the 
tyranny  has  done  its  work,  in  thy  sanctimonious  prudishness, 
drugging  thy  repectable  conscience  by  a  "  searching  inquiry" 
as  to  how  it  all  happened — lest,  forsooth,  there  should  have 
been  "  foul  play  I"  Is  the  knife  or  the  bludgeon,  then,  the 
only  foul  play,  and  not  the  cesspool  and  the  curse  of  Rab- 
shakeh  ?  Go  through  Bermondsey  or  Spitalfields,  St.  Giles's 
or  Lambeth,  and  see  if  there  is  not  foul  play  enough  already — 
to  be  tried  hereafter  at  a  more  awl'ul  coroucr's  inquest  than 
thou  thinkest  of ! 


CHAPTEPv  XXXVI. 

DREAM  LAND. 

It  must  have  been  two  o'clock  in  the  the  morning  before 
I  rea  ?hed  my  lodgings.     Too  much  exhausted  to  think,  I  hur- 
ried to  my  bed.     I  remember  now  that  I  reeled  strangely  as 
[  went  up-stairs.     I  lay  down,  and  was  asleep  in  an  instant. 
How  long  I  had  slept  I  know  not,  when  I  awoke  with  a 
strange  confusion  and  whirling  in  my  brain,  and  an  intolera-    , 
hie  weight  and  pain  about  my  back  and  loins.     By  the  light   / 
of  the  gas-lamp  1  saw  a  figure  standing  at  the  foot  of  my  bed.  / 
I  could  not  discern  the  face,  but  I  knew  instinctively  that  it  1 
was  my  mother.     I  called  to  her  again  and  again,  but  she  ' 
did  not  answer.     She  moved  slowly  away,  and  passed  out 
through  the  wall  of  the  room. 

I  tried  to  follow  her,  but  could  not.      An  enormous,  unut- 
terable weight  seemed  to  lie  upon  me.     The  bed-clothes  grew  f, 
and  grew  before  me,  and  upon  me,  into  a  vast  mountain,  mil    \ 
lions  of  miles  in  height.     Then  it  seemed  all  glowing  red,  like  \ 
the  cone  of  a  volcano.     I  heard  the  roaring  of  the  fires  with-  / 
in,  the  rattling  of  the  cinders  down  the  heaving  slope.     A  / 
river  ran  from  its  summit ;  and  up  that  river-bed  it  seemed  I 
was  doomed  to  climb  and  climb  forever,  millions  and  million.^ 
yf  miles  upwards,  against  the  rushing  stream.     The  thought 
was  intolerable,  and  I  shrieked  aloud.     A  raging  thirst  had 
seized  me.     I  tried  to  drink  the  river-water,  but  it  was  boil- 
ing hot — sulphureous — reeking  of  putrefaction.     Suddenly  I 
fancied  that  I  could  pass  round  the  foot  of  the  mountain  ; 
and  jumbling,  as  madmen  will,  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous, 
I  sprang  up  to  go  round  the  foot  of  my  bed,  M-hich  was  the 
mountain. 

I  recollect  lying  on  the  floor.  I  recollect  the  people  of  the 
house,  who  had  been  awoke  by  my  shriek  and  my  fall,  rush- 
ing in  and  calling  to  me.  I  could  not  rise  or  answer.  I 
recollect  a  doctor ;  and  talk  about  brain  fever  and  delirium. 
It  was  true.  I  was  in  a  raging  fever.  And  my  fancy  long 
pent-up  and  crushed  by  circumstances,  burst  out  in  uncontroll- 
able wildness,  and  swept  my  other  faculties  with  it  helpless 
away,  over  all  heaven  and  earth,  presenting  to  me,  as  in  a 
vast'kaleidoscope,  fantaslic  symbols  of  all  I  had  ever  thought, 
or  read,  or  felt. 


320  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

That  fancy  of  the  mountain  returned  ;  but  I  had  chmbed 
't  now.  I  was  wandering  along  the  lower  ridge  of  the  Him- 
alaya. On  my  right  the  line  of  snow  peaks  showed  like  a 
rosy  saw  against  the  clear  blue  morning  sky.  E-aspberries 
and  cyclamens  were  peeping  through  the  snow  around  me. 
As  I  looked  down  the  abysses,  I  could  see  far  below,  through 
the  thin  vails  of  blue  mist  that  wandered  in  the  glens,  the 
silver  spires  of  giant  deodars,  and  huge  rhododendrons  that 
glowed  like  trees  of  flame.  The  longing  of  my  life  to  behold 
that  cradle  of  mankind  was  satisfied.  My  eyes  reveled  in  vast- 
ness,  as  they  swept  over  the  broad,  flat  jungle  at  the  mount- 
ain foot,  a  desolate  sheet  of  dark  gigantic  grasses,  furrowed 
with  the  paths  of  the  buffalo  and  rhinoceros,  with  barren 
sandy  water  courses,  desolate  pools,  and  here  and  there  a 
single  tree,  stunted  with  malaria,  shattered  by  mountain 
floods  ;  and  far  beyond,  the  vast  plains  of  Hindoostan,  enlaced 
with  myriad  silver  rivers  and  canals,  tanks  and  rice-fields, 
cities  with  their  mosques  and  minarets,  gleaming  among  the 
stately  palm-groves  along  the  boundless  horizon.  Above  me 
was  a  Hindoo  temple,  cut  out  of  the  yellow  sandstone.  I 
climbed  up  to  the  higher  tier  of  pillars  among  monstrous 
shapes  of  gods  and  fiends,  that  mouthed  and  writhed  and 
mocked  at  me,  struggling  to  free  themselves  from  their  bed 
of  rock.  The  bull  Nundi  rose  and  tried  to  gore  me  ;  hundred- 
handed  gods  brandished  quoits  and  sabres  round  my  head ; 
and  Kali  dropped  the  skull  from  her  gore-dripping  jaws,  to 
clutch  me  for  her  prey.  Then  my  mother  came,  and  seizing 
the  pillars  of  the  portico,  bent  them  like  reeds  :  an  earthquake 
shook  the  hills — great  sheets  of  woodland  slid  roaring  and 
crashing  into  the  valleys — a  tornado  swept  through  the  tem- 
ple halls,  which  rocked  and  tossed  like  a  vessel  in  a  storm  : 
a  crash — a  cloud  of  yellow  dust  which  filled  the  air — choked 
me — blinded  me — buried  me — 

And  Eleanor  came  by,  and  took  my  soul  in  the  palm  of  her 
hand,  as  the  angels  did  Faust's,  and  carried  it  to  a  cavern  by 
the  sea-side,  and  dropped  it  in  ;  and  I  fell  and  fell  for  ages. 
And  all  the  velvet  mosses,  rock  flowers,  and  sparkling  spars 
and  ores,  fell  with  me,  round  me,  in  showers  of  diamonds, 
whirlwinds  of  emerald  and  ruby,  and  pattered  into  the  sea 
that  moaned  below,  and  were  quenched ;  and  the  light  lessen- 
ed above  me  to  one  small  spark,  and  vanished ;  and  I  was  in 

darkness,  and  turned  again  to  my  dust 

And  I  was  at  the  lowest  point  of  created  life  ;  a  madrepora 


ALTON  I.OCKE,  TAILOR  AM)  I'OM .  ?^i 

rooted  to  the  rock,  fathoms  below  the  tide-mark  ;  and  worssl 
of  all,  my  individuality  was  gone.  I  was  not  one  thing,  but 
many  things — a  crowd  of  innumerable  polypi  ;  and  I  grew 
and  grew,  and  the  more  I  grew  the  more  I  divided,  and  mul- 
tiplied thousand  and  ten  thousand-fold.  If  I  could  have 
thought,  I  should  have  gone  mad  at  it :  but  I  could  only 
feel. 

And  I  heard  Eleanor  and  Lillian  talking,  as  they  floated 
past  me  through  the  deep,  for  they  were  two  angels  ;  and 
Lillian  said,  "  When  will  he  be  one  again  ?" 

And  Eleanor  said,  "He  who  falls  from  the  golden  ladder 
must  climb  through  ages  to  its  top.  He  who  tears  himself  in 
pieces  by  his  lusts,  ages  only  can  make  him  one  again.  The 
madrepore  shall  become  a  shell,  and  the  shell  a  fish,  and  the 
iish  a  bird,  and  the  bird  a  beast  ;  and  then  he  shall  become  a 
man  again,  and  see  the  glory  of  the  latter  days." 

And  I  was  a  soft  crab,  under  a  stone  on  the  sea-shore. 
With  infinite  starvation,  and  struggling,  and  kicking,  I  had 
got  rid  of  my  armor,  shield  by  shield,  and  joint  by  joint,  and 
cowered,  naked  and  pitiable,  in  the  dark,  among  dead  shells 
and  ooze.  Suddenly  the  stone  was  turned  up  ;  and  there  was 
my  cousin's  hated  face  laughing  at  me,  and  pointing  me  out 
to  Lillian.  She  laughed  too,  as  I  looked  up,  sneaking, 
ashamed,  and  defenseless,  and  squared  up  at  him  with  mv 
soft,  useless  claws.  Why  should  she  not  laugh  ]  Are  not 
crabs,  and  toads,  and  monkeys,  and  a  hundred  other  strange 
ibrms  of  animal  life,  jests  of  nature — embodiments  of  a  divine 
humor,  at  which  men  are  meant  to  laugh  and  be  merry  ? 
But  alas  I  my  cousin,  as  he  turned  away,  thrust  the  stone 
back  with  his  foot,  and  squelched  me  flat 

And  I  was  a  reraora,  weak  and  helpless,  till  I  could  attach 
myself  to  some  living  thing  ;  and  then  I  had  povver  to  stoj) 
the  largest  ship.  And  Lillian  Avas  a  flying-fish,  and  skimmed 
over  the  crests  of  the  waves  on  gauzy  wings.  And  my  cousin 
was  a  huge  shark,  rushing  after  her,  greedy  and  open-mouthed  ; 
and  I  saw  her  danger,  and  clung  to  him,  and  held  him  back; 
and  just  as  I  had  stopped  him,  she  turned  and  swam  back 
into  his  open  jaws 

Sand — sand — nothing  but  sand  !  The  air  was  full  of  sand, 
drifting  over  granite  temples,  and  painted  kings  and  triumphs, 
and  the  skulls  of  a  former  world  ;  and  I  was  an  ostrich,  flying 
madly  before  the  simoon  wind,  and  the  giant  sand  pillars, 
which   stalked    across  the   plains,   hunting  me   down.     And 


322  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Lillian  was  an  Amazon  queen,  beautiful,  and  cold,  and  ci'uel, 
and  she  rode  upon  a  charmed  horse,  and  carried  behind  her  on 
her  saddle  a  spotted  ounce,  which  was  my  cousin  ;  and,  when 
I  came  near  her,  she  made  him  leap  down  and  course  me. 
And  we  ran  for  miles  and  for  days  through  the  interminable 
sand,  till  he  sprung  on  me,  and  dragged  me  down.  And  as  I 
lay  quivering  and  dying,  she  reined  in  her  horse  above  me, 
and  looked  down  on  me  with  beautiful,  pitiless  eyes;  and  a 
wild  Arab  tore  the  plumes  from  my  wings,  and  she  took  them 
and  v/reathed  thein  in  her  golden  hair.  The  broad  and  blood- 
red  sun  sank  down  beneath  the  sand,  and  the  horse  and  the 
Amazon  and  the  ostrich  plumes  .shone  blood-red  in  his  lurid 

rays 

1  was  a  mylodon  among  South  American  forests — a  vast 
sleepy  mass,  my  elephantine  limbs  and  yard-long  talons  con- 
trasting strangely  with  the  little  meek  rabbit's  head,  fin-nished 
with  a  poor  dozen  of  clumsy  grinders,  and  a  very  small  kernel 
of  brains,  whose  highest  consciousness  was  the  enjoyment  of 
muscular  strength.  Where  I  had  picked  up  the  sensation 
which  my  dreams  realized  for  me,  I  know  not :  ray  waking 
life,  alas  I  had  never  given  me  experience  of  it.  Has  the 
mind  power  of  creating  sensations  for  itself?  Surely  it  does 
so,  in  those  delicious  dreams  about  flying  which  haunt  us  pooi 
wingless  mortals,  which  would  seem  to  give  my  namesake's 
philosophy  the  lie.  However  that  may  be,  intense  and  new 
was  the  animal  delight,  to  plant  my  hinder  claws  at  some 
tree-foot  deep  into  the  black,  rotting,  vegetable-mould  which 
steamed  rich  gases  up  wherever  it  was  pierced,  and  clasp  my 
huge  arms  round  the  stem  of  some  palm  or  tree-fern;  anu 
then  slowly  bring  my  enormous  weight  and  muscle  to  bear 
upon  it,  till  the  stem  bent  like  a  withe,  and  the  laced  bark 
cracked,  and  the  fibres  groaned  and  shrieked,  and  the  roots 
sprung  up  out  of  the  soil ;  and  then,  with  a  slow  circular 
wrench,  the  whole  tree  was  twisted  bodily  out  of  the  ground., 
and  the  maddening  tenison  of  my  muscles  suddenly  relaxed, 
and  I  sank  sleepily  down  upon  the  turf,  to  browse  upon  the 
crisp,  tart  foliage,  and  fall  asleep  in  the  glare  of  sunshine 
which  streamed  through  the  new  gap  in  the  green  forest  roof 
Much  as  I  had  envied  the  strong,  I  had  never  before  suspect- 
ed the  delight  of  mere  physical  exertion.  I  now  understood 
the  wild  gambols  of  the  dog,  and  the  madness  which  makes 
the  horse  gallop  and  strain  onward  till  he  drops  and  dies. 
They  fulfill  their  nature,  as  I  was  doing,  and  in  that  is 
alw'iys  happiness. 


ALTON  LOCKi:,  TAILOR  AND  PORT.  32*. 

But  I  did  more — whether  from  mci-e  anirnal  destructivc- 
ness,  or  from  the  spark  of  humanity  which  was  slowly  re- 
kindliujr  iu  me,  I  began  to  delight  in  tearing  up  trees,  for  its 
own  sake.  I  tried  my  strength  daily  on  thicker  and  thicker 
boles.  I  crawled  up  to  the  high  palm-tops,  and  bowed  them 
down  by  my  weight.  My  path  through  the  forest  was  mark- 
ed, like  that  of  a  tornado,  by  snapped  and  prostrate  stema 
and  withering  branches.  Had  I  been  a  few  degrees  moro 
human,  I  might  have  expected  a  retribution  for  my  sin.  I 
had  fractured  my  own  skull  three  or  four  times  already.  I 
u.sed  often  to  pass  the  carcasses  of  my  race,  killed,  as  geolo- 
gists now  find  thcni,  by  the  fall  of  the  tre^s  they  had  over- 
thrown; but  still  1  went  on,  more  and  more  reckless,  a  slave, 
like  many  a  so-called  man,  to  the  mere  sense  of  power. 

One  day  I  waiidered  to  the  margin  of  the  woods,  and 
climbing  a  tree,  surveyed  a  prospect  new  to  me.  For  miles 
and  miles,  away  to  the  Avhite  line  of  the  smoking  Cordillera, 
stretched  a  low  rolling  plain  ;  one  vast  thistle  bed,  the  down 
of  which  flew  in  gray  gauzy  clouds  before  a  soft  fitful  breeze ; 
innumerable  finches  fluttered  and  pecked  above  it,  and  bent 
the  countless  flower-heads.  Far  away,  one  tall  tree  rose 
above  the  level  thistle-ocean.  A  strange  longing  seized  me 
to  go  and  tear  it  down.  The  forest  leaves  seemed  tasteless  ; 
my  stomach  sickened  at  them  ;  nothing  but  that  tree  would 
satisfy  me  :  and  descending,  I  slowly  brushed  my  way,  with 
half-shut  eyes,  through  the  tall  thistles  which  buried  even  my 
bulk. 

At  last,  after  days  of  painful  crawling,  I  dragged  my  un- 
wieldiness  to  the  tree-foot  Around  it  the  plain  was  bare, 
and  scored  by  burrows  and  heaps  of  earth,  among  which 
gold,  some  in  dust,  some  in  great  knots  and  ingots,  sparkled 
every  where  in  the  sun,  in  fearful  contrast  to  the  skulls  and 
bones  which  lay  bleaching  round.  Some  were  human,  some 
were  those  of  vast  and  monstrous  beasts.  I  knew  (one  knows 
every  thing  in  dreams)  that  they  had  been  slain  by  the  wing- 
ed ants,  as  large  as  panthers,  who  snuffed  and  watched 
around  over  the  magic  treasure.  Of  them  I  felt  no  fear ; 
and  they  seemed  not  to  perceive  me,  as  I  crawled,  with 
greedy,  hunger-sharpened  eyes,  up  to  the  foot  of  the  tree.  It 
seemed  miles  in  height.  Its  stem  was  bai'c  and  polished  like 
a  palm's,  and  above  a  vast  feathery  crown  of  dark  green  vel- 
vet slept  in  the  still  sunlight.  But,  wonder  of  wonders  ' 
from  among  the  branches  hung  great  sea-green  lilies,  and, 
nestled  in  the  heart  of  each  of  them,  the  bust  of  a  beautifu' 


3C4  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

girl.  Their  white  bosoms  and  shoulders  gleamed  losy-whita 
against  the  emerald  petals,  like  conch-shells  half-hidden  among 
sea- weeds,  while  their  delicate  waists  melted  mysteriously  into 
the  central  sanctuary  of  the  flower.  Their  long  arms  and 
golden  tresses  waved  languishingly  downward  in  the  breeze  ; 
their  eyes  glittered  like  diamonds  ;  their  breaths  perfumed 
the  air.  A  blind  ecstasy  seized  me — I  awoke  again  to  hu- 
manity, and  fiercely  clasping  the  tree,  shook  and  tore  at  it,  in 
the  blind  hope  of  bringing  nearer  to  me  the  magic  beauties 
above  :  for  1  knew  that  I  was  in  the  famous  land  of  Wak- 
Wak,  from  which  the  Eastern  merchants  used  to  pluck  those 
flower-born  beauties,  and  bring  them  home  to  fill  the  harems 
of  the  Indian  kings.  Suddenly  I  heard  a  rustling  in  the 
thistles  behind  me,  and  looking  round,  saw  again  that  dreaded 
face — my  cousin  1 

He  was  dressed — strange  jumble  that  dreams  are  !  like  an 
American  backwoodsman.  He  carried  the  same  revolver  and 
bowie-knife  which  he  had  showed  me  the  fatal  night  that  he 
intruded  on  the  Chartist  club.  I  shook  with  terror,  but  he, 
too,  did  not  see  me.  He  threw  himself  on  his  knees,  and 
began  fiercely  digging  and  scraping  for  the  gold. 

The  winged  ants  rushed  on  him,  but  he  looked  up,  and 
"  held  them  with  his  glittering  eye,"  and  they  shrank  back 
abashed  into  the  thistle  covert ;  while  I  sti'ained  and  tugged 
on,  and  tlie  faces  of  the  dryads  above  grew  sadder  and  older, 
and  their  tears  fell  on  me  like  a  fragrant  rain. 

Suddenly  the  tree-bole  cracked — it  -was  tottering.  I  looked 
round,  and  saw  that  my  cousin  knelt  directly  in  the  path  of 
its  fall.  I  tried  to  call  to  him  to  move  ;  but  how  could  a 
poor  edentate  like  myself  articulate  a  word?  I  tried  to  catch 
his  attention  by  signs — he  would  not  see.  I  tried,  convul- 
sively, to  hold  the  tree  up,  but  it  was  too  late,  a  sudden  gust 
of  air  swept  by,  and  down  it  rushed,  with  a  roar  like  a  whirl- 
wind, and  leaving  my  cousin  untouched,  struck  me  full  across 
the  loins,  broke  my  backbone,  and  pinned  me  to  the  ground 
in  mortal  agony.  I  heard  one  wild  shriek  rise  from  the  flower 
fairies,  as  they  fell  each  from  the  lily  cup,  no  longer  of  full 
human  size,  but  withered,  shriveled,  diminished  a  thousand- 
fold, and  lay  on  the  bare  sand,  like  little  rosy  humming-birds' 
eggs,  all  crushed  and  dead. 

The  great  blue  heaven  above  me  spoke,  and  cried,  "Selfish 
and  sense-bound  I  thou  hast  murdered  beauty  I" 

The  sighing  thistle-ocean  answered,  and  murmured,  "  Dis 
contented  !   thou  hast  murdered  beauty  !" 


ALTON  LOCKF.,  TAILOR  AM)  I'OKT.  Tzz 

One  flower  fairy  alone  lifted  up  her  tiny  cheek  from  the 
pold-strewn  sand,  and  cried,  "  Presumptuous  I  thou  has  mur- 
dered beauty  I" 

It  was  Lillian's  face — Lillian's  voice  I  My  cousin  hoard  it 
too,  and  turned  eagerly  ;  and  as  niy  eyes  closed  in  the  last  death- 
shiver,  I  saw  him  coolly  pick  up  the  little  heautil'ul  figure, 
wliich  looked  like  a  fragment  of  some  exquisite  cameo,  and 
deliberately  put  it  away  in  his  cigar-case,  as  he  said  to  him- 
self "  A  charming  tit-bit  for  me,  when  I  return  from  the  dig- 
gings I" 

When  I  awoke  again,  I  was  a  baby-ape  in  Borneon  forests, 
perched  among  fragrant  trailers  and  fantastic  orchis  flowers ; 
and  as  I  looked  down,  beneath  the  green  roof,  into  the  clear 
waters  paved  with  unknown  water-lilies  on  wliich  the  sun 
had  never  shone,  I  saw  my  face  reflected  in  the  pool — a  mel- 
ancholy, thoughtful  countenance,  with  large  projecting  brow — 
it  might  have  been  a  negro  child's.  And  I  lelt  stirring  in  me 
germs  of  a  new  and  higher  consciousness — yearnings  of  love 
toward  the  mother  ape,  who  fed  me  and  carried  me  irom  tree 
to  tree.  But  I  grew  and  grew  ;  and  then  the  weight  of  my 
destiny  fell  upon  me.  I  saw  year  by  year  my  brow  recede, 
my  neck  enlarge,  my  jaw  protrude  ;  my  teeth  became  tusks  ; 
skinny  wattles  grew  from  my  cheeks — the  animal  faculties  in 
me  were  swallowing  up  the  intellectual.  I  watched  in  my- 
self, with  stupid  self-disgust,  the  fearful  degradation  which 
goes  on  from  youth  to  age  in  all  the  monkey  race,  especially 
in  those  which  approach  nearest  to  the  human  form.  Long 
melancholy  mopings,  fruitless  strugglings  to  think,  were  peri' 
odically  succeeded  by  wild  frenzies,  agonies  of  lust  and  aim- 
less ferocity.  I  flew  upon  my  brother  apes,  and  was  driven 
oil"  with  wounds.  I  rushed  howling  down  into  the  village 
gardens,  destroying  every  thing  I  met.  I  caught  the  birds 
and  insects,  and  tore  them  to  pieces  with  savage  glee.  One 
day,  as  I  sat  among  the  boughs,  I  saw  Lillian  coming  along 
a  flowery  path — decked  as  Eve  might  have  been,  tiie  day  she 
turned  from  Paradise.  The  skins  of  gorgeous  birds  were 
round  her  waist ;  her  hair  was  wreathed  with  fragrant  tropic 
flowers.  On  her  bosom  lay  a  baby — it  was  my  cousin's.  I 
knew  her,  and  hated  her.  The  madness  came  ujion  me.  I 
longed  to  leap  from  the  bough  and  tear  her  limb  from  limb  ; 
but  brutal  terror,  the  dread  of  man  which  is  the  doom  of  beasts, 
kept  me  rooted  to  my  place.  Then  my  cousin  came — a  hunter 
missionary ;  and  I  heard  him  talk  to  her  with  pride  of  tha 
new  world  of  civilization  and  Christianity  which  he  was  organ- 


S26  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OKT. 

izing  iu  that  tropic  wilderness.  I  listened  with  a  dim  jealous 
understanding — not  of  the  words,  but  of  the  facts.  I  saw 
them  instinctively,  as  in  a  dream.  She  pointed  up  to  me  in 
terror  and  disgust,  as  I  sat  gnashing  and  gibbering  overhead. 
He  threw  up  the  muzzle  of  his  rifle  carelessly,  and  fired — 1 
fell  dead,  but  conscious  still.  I  knew  that  my  carcase  was 
carried  to  the  settlement ;  and  I  watched  while  a  smirking, 
chuckling  surgeon,  dissected  me,  bone  by  bone,  and  nerve  by 
nerve.  And  as  he  was  fingering  at  my  heart,  and  discoursing 
sneeringly  about  Van  Helmont's  dreams  of  the  Archseus,  and 
the  animal  spii'it  which  dwells  within  the  solar  plexus,  Elea- 
nor glided  by  again,  like  an  angel,  and  threw  my  soul  out  of 
the  knot  of  nerves,  with  one  velvet  finger-tip 

Child-dreams — more  vague  and  fragmentary  than  my  ani- 
mal ones ;  and  yet  more  calm  and  simple,  and  gradually,  as 
they  led  me  onward  through  a  new  life,  ripening  into  detail, 
coherence,  and  reflection.  Dreams  of  a  hut  among  the  valleys 
of  '^rhibet — the  young  of  forest  animals,  wild  cats,  and  dogs, 
and  fowls,  brought  home  to  be  my  playmates,  and  grow  up 
tame  around  me.  Snow-peaks  which  glittered  white  against 
the  nightly  sky,  barring  in  the  horizon  of  the  narrow  valley, 
and  yet  seeming  to  beckon  upward,  outward.  Strange  un- 
spoken aspirations — instincts  which  pointed  to  unfulfilled  pow- 
ers, a  mighty  destiny.  A  sense,  awful  and  yet  cheering,  of  a 
wonder  and  a  majesty,  a  presence  and  a  voice  around,  in  the 
clifls  and  the  pine  forests,  and  the  great  blue  rainless  heaven. 
The  music  of  loving  voices,  the  sacred  names  of  child  and 
father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  first  of  all  inspirations.  Had 
we  not  an  All-Father,  whose  eyes  looked  down  upon  us  from 
among  those  stars  above  ;  whose  hand  upheld  the  mountain 
roots  below  us  ?  Did  He  not  love  us,  too,  even  as  we  loved 
each  other  ? 

The  noise  of  wheels  crushing  slowly  through  meadows  of 
tall  marigolds  and  asters,  orchises  and  fragrant  lilies.  I  lay, 
a  child,  upon  a  woman's  bosom.  Was  she  my  mother,  or 
Eleanor,  or  Lillian  ?  Or  was  she  neither,  and  yet  all — some 
ideal  of  the  great  Arian  tribe,  containing  in  herself  all  future 
types  of  European  women  ?  So  I  slept  and  woke,  and  slept 
again,  day  after  day,  week  after  week,  in  the  lazy  bullock- 
wagon,  among  herds  of  gray-cattle,  guarded  by  huge  lop-eared 
mastifis ;  among  shaggy  Avhite  horses,  heavy-horned  sheep,  and 
silky  goats ;  among  tall  bare-limbed  men,  with  stone  axes  on 
their  shoulders,  and  horn  bows  at  their  backs.  Westward, 
through  the  boundless  steppes,  whither  or  why  we  knew  not; 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  327 

but  that  tlie  All-Father  had  sent  us  forth.  Anil  behind  us, 
the  rosy  snow  peaks  died  into  ghastly  pray,  lower  and  lower 
as  every  evening  came  ;  and  before  us  the  plains  spread  infi- 
nite, with  gleaming  salt-lakes,  and  ever  iresh  tribes  of  gaudy 
flowers.  Behind  us  dark  lines  of  living  beings  streamed  down 
the  mountain  slopes  ;  around  us  dark  lines  crawled  along  the 
plains — all  westward,  westward  ever — the  tribes  of  the  Holy 
Mountain  poured  out  like  water  to  replenish  the  earth  and 
subdue  it — lava  streams  from  the  crater  of  that  great  soul- 
volcano — Titan  babies,  dumb  angels  of  God,  bearing  with 
them  in  their  unconscious  pregnancy,  the  law,  the  freedom, 
the  science,  the  poetrj-,  the  Christianity,  of  Europe  and  the 
world. 

Westward  ever — who  could  stand  against  us  ?  We  met  the 
wild  asses  on  the  steppe,  and  tamed  them,  and  made  them 
our  slaves.  We  slew  the  bison  herds,  and  swam  broad  rivers 
on  their  skins.  The  Python  snake  lay  across  our  path  ;  the 
wolves  and  the  v.'ild  dogs  snarled  at  us  out  of  their  coverts  ; 
we  slew  them  and  went  on.  The  forest  rose  in  black  tangled 
barriers;  we  hewed  our  way  through  them  and  went  on. 
Strange  giant  tribes  met  us,  and  eagle-visaged  hordes,  fierce 
and  foolish  ;  we  smote  them  hip  and  thigh,  and  went  on, 
westward  ever.  Days  and  weeks  and  months  rolled  on,  and 
our  wheels  rolled  on  with  them.  New  Alps  rose  up  before  us ; 
we  climbed  and  climbed  them,  till,  in  lonely  glens,  th')  mount- 
ain walls  stood  up  and  barred  our  path. 

Then  one  arose  and  said,  "  Rocks  are  strong,  but  the  All- 
Father  is  stronger.  Let  us  pray  to  him  to  send  the  earth- 
quakes, and  blast  the  mountains  asunder." 

So  we  sat  down  and  prayed,  but  the  earthquake  did  not 
rome. 

Then  another  arose  and  said,  "  llocks  are  strong,  but  tho 
All-Father  is  stronger.  If  we  are  the  children  of  the  All- 
Father,  we,  too,  are  stronger  than  the  rocks.  Let  us  portion 
out  the  valley,  to  every  man  an  equal  plot  of  ground  ;  and 
bring  out  the  sacred  seeds,  and  sow,  and  build,  and  come 
up  with  me  and  bore  the  mountain." 

And  all  said,  "  It  is  the  voice  of  God.  We  will  go  up  Avith 
thee,  and  bore  the  mountain  ;  and  thou  shalt  be  our  king,  for 
thou  art  wisest,  and  the  spirit  of  the  All-Father  is  on  thee  ; 
and  whosoever  will  not  go  up  with  thee  shall  die  as  a  coward 
and  an  idler." 

So  we  went  up  ;  and  in  the  morning  we  bored  the  mount 
ain,  and  at  night  we  came  down  and  tilled  llie  ground,  and 


328  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

sowed  wheat  and  barley,  and  planted  orchards.  And  in  the 
upper  glens  we  met  the  mining  dwarfs,  and  saw  Iheir  tools 
of  iron  and  copper,  and  their  rock-houses  and  forges,  and  envied 
them.  But  they  would  give  us  none  of  them  :  then  our  king 
said, 

"  The  All-Father  has  given  all  things  and  all  wisdom. 
Woe  to  him  who  keeps  them  to  himself:  Ave  will  teach  you 
to  sow  the  sacred  seeds  ;  and  do  you  teach  us  your  smith-work, 
or  you  die." 

Then  the  dwarfs  taught  us  smith-work ;  and  we  loved  them, 
for  they  were  wise ;  and  they  married  our  sons  and  daughters ; 
and  we  went  on  boring  the  mountain. 

Then  some  of  us  arose  and  said,  '•  We  are  stronger  than 
our  brethren,  and  can  till  more  ground  than  they.  Give  us  a 
greater  portion  of  land,  to  each  according  to  his  power." 

But  the  king  said,  "  Wherefore  ?  that  ye  may  eat  and  drink 
more  than  your  brethren  ?  Have  you  larger  stomachs,  as  well 
as  stronger  arms  ?  As  much  as  a  man  needs  for  himself, 
that  he  may  do  for  himself  The  rest  is  the  gift  of  the  All- 
Father,  and  we  must  do  his  work  therewith.  For  the  sake 
of  the  women  and  the  children,  for  the  sake  of  the  sick  and 
the  aged,  let  him  that  is  stronger  go  up  and  work  the 
harder  at  the  mountain."  And  all  men  said,  "It  is  well 
spoken." 

So  we  were  all  equal — for  none  took  more  than  he  needed  ; 
and  we  were  all  free,  because  we  loved  to  obey  the  king  by 
whom  the  spirit  spoke  ;  and  we  Avere  all  brothers,  because  we 
had  one  work,  and  one  hope,  and  one  All-Father. 

But  I  grew  up  to  be  a  man  ;  and  twenty  years  were  passed, 
and  the  mountain  was  not  bored  through ;  and  the  king  grew 
old,  and  men  began  to  love  their  flocks  and  herds  better  than 
quarrying,  and  they  gave  up  boring  through  the  mountain. 
And  the  strong  and  the  cunning  said,  "  What  can  we  do  with 
all  this  might  of  ours  V  So,  because  they  had  no  other  way 
of  employing  it,  they  turned  it  against  each  other,  and  swal- 
lowed up  the  heritage  of  the  weak  :  and  a  few  grew  rich,  and 
many  poor ;  and  the  valley  was  filled  M'ith  sorrow,  for  the 
land  became  too  narrow  for  them. 

Tlien  I  arose  and  said,  "  How  is  this  ?"  And  they  said, 
"We  must  make  provision  for  our  children." 

And  I  answered,  "The  All-Father  meaiit  neither  you  nor 
your  children  to  devour  your  brethren.  Why  do  you  not 
break  up  more  waste  ground  ?  Why  do  you  not  try  to  grow 
more  corn  in  vfii""  fields  ?  ' 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  329 

Aiad  they  answered,  "  We  till  the  ground  as  our  Ibrefalhera 
did  •  we  will  keep  to  the  old  traditions." 

And  I  answered,  "  Oh  ye  hypocrites  I  have  ye  not  forgotten 
the  old  traditions,  that  each  man  should  have  his  equal  share 
of  ground,  and  that  we  should  go  on  working  at  the  mountain, 
ibr  the  sake  of  the  weak  and  the  children,  the  fatherless  and 
the  Avidowl" 

And  they  answered  naught  for  a  while. 

Then  one  said,  "Are  we  not  better  off  as  we  are  ?  We  buy 
the  poor  man's  ground  for  a  price,  and  we  pay  him  his  wages 
for  tilling  it  for  us — and  we  know  better  how  to  manage  it 
than  he." 

And  I  said,  "Oh  ye  hypocrites  I  See  how  your  lie  works! 
Those  who  were  free  are  now  slaves.  Those  who  had  peace 
of  mind  are  now  anxious  from  day  to  day  for  their  daily  bread. 
And  the  multitude  gets  poorer  and  poorer,  while  ye  grow  fat- 
ter and  fatter.  If  ye  had  gone  on  boring  the  mountain,  ye 
would  have  had  no  time  to  eat  up  your  brethren." 

Then  they  laughed  and  said,  "Thou  art  a  singer  of  songs, 
and  a  dreamer  of  dreams.  Let  those  who  want  to  get  through 
the  mountain  go  up  and  bore  it  ;  we  are  well  enough  here. 
Come  now,  sing  us  pleasant  songs,  and  talk  no  more  foolish 
dreams,  and  we  will  reward  thee." 

Then  they  brought  out  a  vailed  maiden,  and  said,  "Look  I 
her  feet  are  like  ivory,  and  her  hair  like  threads  of  gold  ;  and 
she  is  the  sweetest  singer  in  the  whole  valley.  And  she  shall 
be  thine,  if  thou  wilt  be  like  other  people,  and  prophesy  smooth 
things  unto  us,  and  torment  us  no  more  with  talk  about  lib- 
erty, equality,  and  brotherhood  ;  for  they  never  were,  and  never 
will  be,  on  this  earth.  Living  is  too  hard  Avork  to  give  in  to 
such  fancies." 

And  when  the  maiden's  vail  was  lifted,  it  was  Lillian. 
And  she  clasped  me  round  the  neck,  and  cried,  "Gomel  I 
will  be  your  bride,  and  you  shall  be  rich  and  powerful  ;  and 
all  men  shall  speak  well  of  you,  and  you  shall  write  songs,  and 
we  will  sing  them  together,  and  feast  and  play  from  dawn  to 
dawn." 

And  I  wept ;  and  turned  me  about,  and  cried,  "Wife  and 
child,  song  and  wealth,  are  pleasant  ;  but  blessed  is  the  work 
which  the  All-Father  has  given  the  people  to  do.  Let  tho 
maimed  and  the  halt  and  the  blind,  the  needy  and  the  father- 
less, come  up  after  me,  and  we  will  bore  the  mountain." 

But  the  rich  drove  me  out,  and  drove  back  those  who  would 
have  fallowed  me.     So  I  went  up  by  myself,  and  bored  the 


S3.        ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOET. 

mcuitaiii  seven  years,  weeping- ;  and  every  year  Lillian  came 
to  me,  and  said,  "Come,  and  be  my  husband,  Ibr  my  beauty  is 
fading,  and  youth  passes  fast  avi^ay."  But  I  set  my  heart 
steadiastly  to  the  work. 

And  when  seven  years  were  over,  the  poor  were  so  multi- 
plied, that  the  rich  had  not  Avherewith  to  pay  their  labor. 
And  there  eiamc  a  famine  in  the  land,  and  many  of  the  poor 
died.  Then  the  rich  said,  "if  we  let  these  men  starve,  they 
will  turn  on  us,  and  kill  us,  for  hunger  has  no  conscience,  and 
they  are  all  but  like  the  beasts  that  perish."  So  they  all 
brought,  one  a  bullock,  another  a  sack  of  meal,  each  according 
to  his  substance,  and  fed  the  poor  therewith  ;  and  said  to  them, 
"Behold  our  love  and  mercy  toward  you  I"  But  the  more 
they  gave,  the  less  they  had  wherewithal  to  pay  their  labor- 
ers ;  and  the  more  they  gave,  the  less  the  poor  liked  to  work  ; 
so  that  at  last  they  had  not  wherewithal  to  pay  for  tilling  the 
ground,  and  each  man  had  to  go  and  till  his  own,  and  knew 
not  how  ;  so  the  land  lay  waste,  and  there  was  great  per- 
plexity. 

Then  I  went  down  to  them  and  said,  "if  you  had  heark- 
ened to  me,  and  not  robbed  your  brethren  of  their  land,  you 
would  never  have  come  into  this  strait ;  for  by  this  time  the 
mountain  would  have  been  bored  through." 

Then  they  cursed  the  mountain,  and  me,  and  Him  who 
made  them,  and  came  down  to  my  cottage  at  night,  and  cried, 
"  One-sided  and  left-handed  I  father  of  confusion,  and  disciple 
of  dead  donkeys,  see  to  what  thou  hast  brought  the  land,  with 
thy  blasphemous  doctrines  !  Here  we  are  starving,  and  not 
only  we,  but  the  poor  misguided  victims  of  thy  abominable 
notions  I" 

"  You  have  become  wondrous  pitiful  to  the  poor,"  said  I, 
"  since  you  found  that  they  would  not  starve  that  you  might 
M'anton." 

Then  once  more  Lillian  came  to  me,  thin  and  pale  and 
worn.  "  See,  I,  too,  am  starving  I  and  you  have  been  the  cause 
of  it ;  but  I  will  forgive  all  if  you  will  help  us  but  this  once." 

"  How  shall  I  help  you  ?" 

"  You  are  a  poet  and  an  orator,  and  win  over  all  hearts 
with  your  talk  and  your  songs.  Go  down  to  the  tribes  of  the 
plain,  and  persuade  them  to  send  us  up  warriors,  that  Ave  may 
put  down  these  riotous  and  idle  wretches ;  and  you  shall  be  king 
of  all  the  land,  and  I  will  be  your  slave,  by  day  and  night." 

But  I  went  out,  and  quarried  steadfastly  at  the  mountain. 

And  when  I  came  back  the  next  evening,  the  poor  had 


ALTON  LOvJKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  33! 

risen  against  the  rich,  one  and  all,  crying,  "As  you  have  dono 
to  us,  so  will  "\ve  do  to  you  ;"  and  they  hunted  them  down  likb 
wild  beasts,  and  slew  many  of  them,  and  threw  their  carcases 
on  the  dunghill,  and  took  possession  of  their  land  and  houses, 
and  cried,  "  We  will  be  all  free  and  equal  as  our  Ibrefathers 
were,  and  live  here,  and  eat  and  drink,  and  take  our  pleasure." 

Then  1  ran  out,  and  cried  to  them,  "  Fools  I  will  you  do 
as  these  rich  did,  and  neglect  the  work  of  (iod  ?  If  you  do 
to  them  as  they  have  done  to  you,  you  will  sin  as  they  sinned, 
and  devour  each  other  at  the  last,  as  they  devoured  you. 
The  old  paths  are  best.  Let  each  man,  rich  or  poor,  have 
his  equal  share  of  the  land,  as  it  was  at  first,  and  go  up  and 
dig  through  the  mountain,  and  possess  the  good  land  beyond, 
where  no  man  need  jostle  his  neighbor,  or  rob  him,  when  the 
land  becomes  too  small  for  you.  Were  the  rich  only  in  fault? 
Did  not  you,  too,  neglect  the  work  which  the  All-Father  had 
given  you,  and  run  every  man  after  his  own  comfort  ?  So 
you  entered  into  a  lie,  and  by  your  own  sin  raised  up  the 
rich  men  to  be  your  punishment.  For  the  last  time,  who 
will  go  up  with  me  to  the  mountain  ?" 

Then  they  all  cried  with  one  voice,  "  We  have  sinned  I 
We  will  go  up  and  pierce  the  mountain,  and  fuUill  the  work 
whirh  God  set  to  our  forefathers." 

We  went  up,  and  the  first  stroke  that  I  struck,  a  crag  fell 
oul  ;  and  behold,  the  light  of  day  !  and  far  below  us  the  good 
laud  and  large,  stretching  away  boundless  toward  the  west- 
ern sun 

I  sat  by  the  cave's  mouth  at  the  dawning  of  the  day 
Past  me  the  tribe  poured  down,  young  and  old,  with  their 
wagons,  and  their  cattle,  their  seeds,  and  their  arms,  as  of 
old — yet  not  as  of  old — wiser  and  stronger,  taught  by  long 
labor  and  sore  affliction.  Downward  they  streamed  from 
the  cave's  mouth  into  the  glens,  following  the  guidance  of 
the  silver  water-courses  ;  and  as  they  passed  me,  each  kissed 
my  hands  and  feet,  and  cried,  "  Thou  hast  saved  us — thou 
hast  given  up  all  for  us.     Come  and  be  our  king  I" 

"  Nay,"  I  said,  "  I  have  been  your  king  this  many  a  year  ; 
for  I  have  been  the  servant  of  you  all." 

I  went  down  with  them  into  the  plain,  and  called  them 
round  me.  Many  times  they  besought  me  to  go  with  them 
and  lead  them. 

"  No,"  I  said  ;  '  I  am  old  and  gray-headed,  and  I  am  not 
as  I  have  been  Choose  out  the  wisest  and  most  righteous 
among  you,  and  let  him  lead  you.     But  bind  him  to  your- 


332  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

selves  with  au  oath,  that  whenever  he  shall  say  to  you,  '  Sta/ 
here,  and  let  us  sit  down  and  build,  and  dwell  here  forever,' 
you  shall  cast  him  out  of  his  office,  and  make  him  a  hewer 
of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water,  and  choose  one  who  will  lead 
you  forward  in  the  spirit  of  God." 

The  crowd  opened,  and  a  woman  came  forward  into  the 
circle.  Her  face  Avas  vailed,  but  we  all  knew  her  for  a 
prophetess.  Slowly  she  stepped  into  the  midst,  chanting  a 
mystic  song.  Whether  it  spoke  of  past,  present,  or  future, 
we  knew  not  ;  but  it  sank  deep  into  all  our  hearts, 

"  True  freedom  stands  in  meekness — 
True  strength  in  utter  weakness — 
Justice  in  forgiveness  lies — 
Riches  in  seU'-sacrifice — 
Own  no  rank  but  God's  own  spirit — 
Wisdom  rule  ! — and  worth  inherit ! 
Work  for  all,  and  all  employ — 
Share  with  all,  and  all  enjoy — 
God  alike  to  all  has  given. 
Heaven  as  Earth,  and  Earth  as  Heaven, 
When  the  land  shall  find  her  king  again, 
And  the  reign  of  God  is  come." 

We  all  listened  awe-struck.  She  turned  to  us  and  con- 
tinued, 

"  Hearken  to  me,  children  of  Japhet,  the  unresting  I 
"  On  the  holy  mountain  of  Paradise,  in  the  Asgard  of  the 
Hindoo-Koh,  in  the  cup  of  the  four  rivers,  in  the  womb  of 
the  mother  of  nations,  in  brotherhood,  equality,  and  freedom, 
the  sons  of  men  were  begotten,  at  the  wedding  of  the  heaven 
and  the  earth.  Mighty  infants,  you  did  the  right  you  knew 
not  of,  and  sinned  not,  because  there  was  no  temptation.  By 
selfishness  you  fell,  and  became  beasts  of  prey.  Each  man 
coveted  the  universe  for  his  own  lusts,  and  not  that  he  might 
fulfill  in  it  God's  command  to  people  and  subdue  it.  Loiig 
have  you  wandered — and  long  will  you  wander  still.  For 
here  you  have  no  abiding  city.  You  shall  build  cities,  and 
they  shall  crumble  ;  you  shall  invent  forms  of  society  and 
religion,  and  they  shall  fail  in  the  hour  of  need.  You  shall 
call  the  lands  by  your  own  names,  and  fresh  waves  of  men 
shall  sweep  you  forth,  westward,  westward  ever,  till  you  have 
traveled  round  the  path  of  the  sun,  to  the  place  from  whence 
you  came.  For  out  of  Paradise  you  went,  and  unto  Paradise 
you  shall  return  ;  you  shall  become  once  more  as  little  chil- 
dren, and  renew  your  youth,  like  the  eagle's.  Feature  by 
feature,  and  limb  by  limb  ye  shall  renew  it ;  age  after  age 


ALTON   LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  333 

gradually  and  painfully,  by  hunger  and  pestilence,  by  super- 
stitions and  tyrannies,  by  need  and  blank  despair,  shall  you 
be  driven  back  to  the  All-Father's  home,  till  you  become  as 
you  were  before  you  fell,  and  left  the  likeness  of  your  father 
for  the  likeness  of  the  beasts.  Out  of  Paradise  you  came, 
from  liberty,  equality,  and  brotherhood,  and  unto  them  you 
shall  return  again.  You  went  Ibrth  in  unconscious  infancy— 
you  shall  return  in  thoughtful  manhood.  You  went  forth  in 
ignorance  and  need — you  shall  return  in  science  and  wealth, 
])hilosoi)hy  and  art.  You  went  forth  with  the  world  a  wil- 
derness before  you — you  shall  return  when  it  is  a  garden  be- 
hind you.  You  went  forth  selfish  savages — you  shall  return 
as  the  brothers  of  the  Son  of  God. 

"  And  for  you,"  she  said,  looking  on  me,  "your  penance  is 
accomplished.  You  have  learned  Avhat  it  is  to  be  a  man. 
You  have  lost  your  life  and  saved  it.  He  that  gives  up 
house,  or  land,  or  wife,  or  child,  for  God's  sake,  it  shall  be 
repaid  him  an  hundred-fold.     Awake  I" 

Surely  I  knew  that  voice  !  She  lifted  her  vail.  The  face 
was  Lillian's  1     No  ! — Eleanor's  I 

Gently  she  touched  my  hand — I  sank  down  into  soft 
weary,  happy  sleep. 

The  spell  was  snapped.  IMy  fever  and  my  dreams  faded 
away  together,  and  I  woke  to  the  twittering  of  the  sparrows, 
and  the  scent  of  the  poplar  leaves,  and  the  sights  and  sounds 
of  my  childhood,  and  found  Eleanor  and  her  uncle  sitting  by 
my  bed,  and  with  them  Crossthwaite's  little  wife. 

I  would  have  spoken,  but  Eleanor  laid  her  finger  on  her 
lipS;  and  taking  her  uncle's  arm,  glided  from  the  room.  Katie 
kept  stubbornly  a  smiling  silence,  and  I  was  fain  to  obey  my 
new-found  guardian  angels. 

What  need  of  many  words  ?  Slowly,  and  with  relapses 
into  insensibility,  I  passed,  like  one  who  recovers  from  drown- 
ing, through  the  painful  gate  of  birth  into  another  life.  The 
fury  of  passion  had  been  replaced  by  a  delicious  weakness. 
The  thunder-clouds  had  passed  roaring  down  the  wind,  and 
the  calm,  bright,  holy  evening  was  come.  My  heart,  like  a 
fretful  child,  had  stamped  and  wept  itself  to  sleep.  I  was 
past  even  gratitude  ;  infinite  submission  and  humility,  feel- 
ings too  long  forgotten,  absorbed  my  whole  being.  Only,  I 
never  dared  meet  Eleanor's  eye.  Iler  voice  was  like  an 
angel's  when  she  spoke  to  me — friend,  mother,  sister,  all  in 
one.  But  I  had  a  dim  recollection  of  beinsr  unju.st  to  her-— 
cf  seme  bar  between  us. 


334  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Katie  and  Crossthwaite,  as  they  sat  by  me,  tnider  and 
careful  nurses  both,  told  me  in  time,  that  to  Eleanor  I  owed 
all  my  comforts.  I  could  not  thank  her — the  debt  Avas 
infinite,  inexplicable.  I  felt  as  if  I  must  speak  all  my  heart 
or  none  ;  and  I  watched  her  lavish  kindness  Avith  a  sort  of 
sleepy,  passive  wonder,  like  a  new-born  babe. 

At  last,  one  day,  my  kind  nurses  allowed  me  to  speak  a 
little.  I  broached  to  Crossthwaite  the  subject  which  filled 
my  thoughts.  "  How  came  I  here  ?  How  came  you  here  ? 
uid  Lady  Ellerton  1     What  is  the  meaninjr  of  it  all  ?" 

"  The  meaning  is,  that  Lady  Ellerton,  as  they  call  her,  is 
an  angel  out  of  heaven.  Ah,  Alton  I  she  was  your  true 
friend,  after  all,  if  you  had  but  known  it,  and  not  that  other 
one  at  all." 

I  turned  my  head  away. 

"  Whisht — howld  then,  Johnny  darlint  :  and  don't  go  tor 
men  ting  the  poor  dear  sow],  just  when  he's  comin'  round 
again." 

"  No,  no  I  tell  me  all.  I  must — I  ought — I  deserve  to 
bear  it.     How  did  she  come  here  ?" 

"  Why  then,  it's  my  belief,  she  had  her  eye  on  you  ever 
since  you  came  out  of  that  Bastile.  and  before  that,  too  ;  and 
she  found  you  out  at  Mackaye's,  and  me  with  you,  for  I  was 
there  looking  after  you.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  your  ilhress,  I'd 
have  been  in  Texas  now,  with  our  friends,  for  all's  up  with 
the  Charter,  and  the  country's  too  hot,  at  least  for  me.  I'm 
sick  of  the  whole  thing  together,  patriots,  aristocrats,  and 
every  body  else,  except  this  blessed  angel.  And  I've  got  a 
couple  of  hundred  to  emigrate  with;  and  what's  more,  so 
have  you." 

"  How's  that  V 

"  Why,  when  poor  dear  old  Mackaye's  will  was  read,  and 
I  you  raving  mad  in  the  next  room,  he  had  left  all  his  stock-in- 
trade,  that  was,  the  books,  to  some  of  our  friends,  to  form  a 
j  M'orkmen's  library  with,  and  £400  he'd  saved,  to  be  parted 
/  between  you  and  me,  on  condition  that  we'd  G.  T.  T.,  and 
I  cool  down  across  the  Atlantic,  for  seven  years  come  the  tenth 
I    of  April." 

So  then,  by  the  lasting  love  of  my  adopted  father,  I  was  at 

present  at  least  out  of  the  reach  of  want  I     My  heart  Avas 

ready  to  overflow  at  my  eyes ;  but  I  could  not  rest  till  I  had 

'  heard  more  of  Lady  Ellerton.     What  brought  her  here,  to 

nurse  me  as  if  she  had  been  a  sister  ? 

"  Why,  then,  she  lives  not  far  off  by.     When  her  husband 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.       3:i5 

died,  his  cousin  got  the  estate  and  title,  and  so  she  came,  Katie  ] 
tells  me,  and  lived  for  one  year  down  somewhere  in  the  East- 1 
end  among  the  needlewomen;  and  spent  her  whole  fortune  I 
on  the  poor,  and  never  kept  a  servant,  so  they  say,  but  made' 
her  own  bed  and  cooked  her  own  dinner,  and  got  her  breadl 
with  her  own  needle,  to  see  what  it  was  really  like.     And| 
she  learnt  a  lesson  there,  I  can  tell  you,  and  God  bless  her 
for  it.     For  now  she's  got  a  large  house  hereby,  with  fifty  or 
more  in  it,  all  at  work  together,  sharing  the  earnings  among 
themselves,  and  putting  into  their  own  pockets  the  profits, 
which  would  have  gone  to  their  tyrants ;  and  she  keeps  the 
accounts   for   them,    and  gets   the  goods  sold,  and  manages 
every  thing,  and  reads  to  them  while  they  work,  and  teaches 
them  every  day." 

"And  takes  her  victuals  with  them,"  said  Katie,  "share 
and  share  alike.  She  that  was  so  grand  a  lady  to  demane 
herself  to  the  poor  unfortunate  young  things  I  She's  as  blessed 
a  saint  as  any  a  one  in  the  Calendar,  if  they'll  forgive  me  for 
saying  so." 

"  Ay  !  demeaning,  indeed  I  for  the  best  of  it  is,  they're  not  the 
respectable  ones  only,  though  she  spends  hundreds  on  them — " 

"  And  sure,  haven't  I  seen  it  .Avith  my  own  eyes,  when  I've 
been  there  charring  V 

"  Ay,  but  those  she  lives  with  ai'e  the  fallen  and  the  lost 
OTies — those  that  the  rich  would  not  set  up  in  business,  or  help 
them  to  emigrate,  or  lift  them  out  of  the  gutter  with  a  pair 
of  tongs,  for  fear  they  should  stain  their  own  whitewash  in 
handling  them." 

"And  sure  they're  as  dacent  as  meself  now,  the  poor  dar 
lints  I  It  was  misery  druv  'em  to  it,  every  one ;  perhaps  it 
might  hav'  druv  me  the  same  way  if  I'd  a  lot  o'  childer,  and 
Johnny  gone  to  glory — and  the  blessed  saints  save  him  from 
that  same  at  all  at  all  I" 

"  What  !  from  going  to  glory  ?'    said  John. 

•'  Och,  thin,  and  wouldn't  1  just  go  mad  if  ever  such  ill 
luck  happened  to  yees  as  to  be  taken  to  heaven  in  the  prime 
of  your  days,  asthore  V 

And  she  began  sobbing,  and  hugging,  and  kissing  the  lit- 
tle man  ;  and  then  suddenly  recollecting  herself,  scolded  him 
heartily  for  making  such  a  "  whillybaloo,"  and  thrust  him  out 
of  my  room,  to  re-commence  kissing  him  in  the  next,  lea.ving 
me  to  many  meditations. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIT. 

THE  TRUE  DEMAGOGUE. 

I  USED  to  try  to  arrange  niy  thoughts,  but  could  not;  the 
past  seemed  swept  away  and  buried,  like  the  wreck  of  some 
drowned  land  after  a  flood.  Plowed  by  affliction  to  the  core, 
I  my  heart  lay  fallow  for  every  seed  that  fell.  Eleanor  un- 
'  derslood  me,  and  gently  and  gradually,  beneath  her  skillful 
hand,  the  chaos  began  again  to  bloom  with  verdure.  She 
and  Crossthwaite  used  to  sit  and  read  to  me — from  the  Bible, 
from  poets,  from  every  book  which  could  suggest  soothing, 
graceful,  or  hopeful  fancies.  Now,  out  of  the  stillness  of  the 
darkened  chamber,  one  or  two  priceless  sentences  of  a  Kempis, 
or  a  spirit-stirring  Hebrew  psalm,  would  fall  upon  my  ear : 
and  then  there  was  silence  again  ;  and  1  was  left  to  brood 
over  the  words  iu  vacancy,  till  they  became  a  fibre  of  my  own 
soul's  core.  Again  and  again  the  stories  of  Lazarus  and  the 
Magdalene  alternated  with  Milton's  Penseroso,  or  with  Words 
worth's  tenderest  and  most  solemn  strains.  Exquisite  prints 
from  the  history  of  our  Lord's  life  aiui  death  were  hung  one 
by  one,  each  lor  a  few  days,  opposite  my  bed,  where  they 
mi"-ht  catch  my  eye  the  moment  that  I  woke,  the  moment 
before  I  fell  asleep.  I  heard  one  day  the  good  dean  remon- 
strating with  her  on  the  "sentimentahsm"  of  her  mode  of 
treatment. 

"Poor  drowned  butterfly!"  she  answered,  smiUng,  "ho 
.must  be  fed  with  honey-dew.  Have  I  not  surely  had  practice 
enough  already  ?" 

"  Yes,  angel  that  you  are  I"  answered  the  old  man,  "You 
have  indeed  had  practice  enough  I"  and  lifting  her  hand 
reverentially  to  his  lips,  he  turned  and  left  the  room. 

She  sat  down  by  me  as  I  lay,  and  began  to  read  from 
Tennyson's  Lotus-Eaters.  But  it  was  not  reading — it  was 
rather  a  soft  dreamy  chant,  which  rose  and  fell  like  the  Avavea 
of  sound  on  an  iEolian  harp. 

"  There  is  sweet  music  here  that  softer  falls 
Than  petals  from  blown  roses  on  the  grass, 
Or  nio-ht  (lews  on  still  waters  between  walls 
Of  shadowy  granite,  in  a  gleaminfr  pass  ; 
Music  that  gentlier  on  the  spirit  lies 
Than  tired  eye-lids  upon  tired  eyes ; 
Music  that  brini  s  sweet  sleep  down  from  the  blissful  skise. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET  337 

Here  are  cool  mosses  deep, 

And  through  the  moss  the  ivies  creep, 

And  in  the  stream  the  long-leaved  flowers  weep, 

And  from  the  craggy  ledge  the  poppy  hangs  in  sleep. 

Why  arc  we  weigh  d  upon  with  heaviness, 

And  utterly  consumed  with  sharp  distress, 

AV'hile  all  things  else  have  rest  from  weariness  ? 

All  things  have  rest :  why  should  we  toil  alone  ? 

We  only  toil  who  are  the  first  of  things. 

And  make  perpetual  moan. 

Still  from  one  sorrow  to  another  thrown  : 

Nor  e^'cr  fold  our  wings, 

And  cease  from  wanderings  ; 

Nor  steep  our  brows  in  slumber's  holy  balm ; 

Nor  hearken  what  the  inner  spirit  sings, 

'  There  is  no  joy  but  calm  !' 

Why  should  we  only  toil,  the  roof  and  crown  of  things?" 

She  paused — 

"  'My  soul  was  an  enchanted  boat 
Which,  like  a  sleeping  swan,  did  float 
Upon  the  silver  waves  of  her  sweet  singing." 

Half  unconscious,  I  looked  up.  Before  me  hung'  a  copy  oi 
Ilaffaelle's  cartoon  of  the  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes.  Aa 
my  eye  wandered  over  it,  it  seemed  to  blend  into  harmony 
with  the  feelings  which  the  poem  had  stirred.  I  seemed  to 
float  upon  the  glassy  lake.  I  watched  the  vista  of  the 
waters  and  mountains,  receding  into  the  dreamy  infinite  of 
the  still  summer  sky.  Softly  from  distant  shores  came  the 
hum  of  eager  multitudes  ;  towers  and  palaces  slept  quietly 
beneath  the  eastern  sun.  In  front,  fantastic  fishes,  and  the 
birds  of  the  mountain  and  the  lake,  confessed  His  power,  who 
Bat  there  in  His  calm  godlike  beauty,  His  eye  ranging  over 
all  that  still  infinity  of  His  own  works,  over  all  that  wondrous 
line  of  figures,  which  seemed  to  express  every  gradation  of 
spiritual  consciousness,  from  the  dark  self-condemned  dislike 
of  Judas's  averted  and  wily  face,  through  mere  animal  greedi- 
ness to  the  first  dawnings  of  surprise,  and  on  to  the  manly  awe 
and  gratitude  of  Andrew's  majestic  figure,  and  the  self-abhor- 
rent humility  of  Peter,  as  he  shrank  down  into  the  bottom  oi" 
the  skifi^  and  Avith  convulsive  palms  and  bursting  brow,  seem- 
ed to  press  out  from  his  inmost  heart  the  words,  "Depart  from 
me,  for  I  am  a  sinlbl  man,  O  Lor  1  I"'  Truly,  pictures  are 
the  books  of  the  uidearned,  and  of  the  mis-learned  too. 
Glorious  Raflaelle  I  Shakspeare  of  the  south  I  Mighty  preach- 
er, to  whose  blessed  intuition  it  was  given  to  know  all  humuu 


338  ALTOxN  LOCKE,  TAILOil  AND  POET. 

hearts,  to  embody  in  form  and  color  till  spiritual  truths,  com 
mon  alike  to  Protestant  and  Papist,  to  workman  and  to  sage 
— Oh  that  I  may  meet  thee  before  the  throne  of  God,  if  it  be 
but  to  thank  thee  for  that  one  picture,  in  which  thou  didst 
reveal  to  me,  in  a  single  glance,  every  step  of  my  own  spirit- 
ual history  I 

She  seemed  to  follow  my  eyes,  and  guess  from  them  the 
workings  of  my  heart ;  for  noAV,  in  a  low  half  abstracted  voice, 
as  Diotima  may  have  talked  of  old,  she  began  to  speak  of  rest 
and  labor,  of  death  and  life  ;  of  a  labor  which  is  perfect  rest 
— of  a  daily  death,  which  is  but  daily  birth — of  weakness, 
which  is  the  strength  of  God  ;  and  so  she  wandered  on  in  her 
speech  to  Him  who  died  for  us.  And  gradually  she  turned 
to  me.  She  laid  one  finger  solemnly  on  my  listless  palm,  as 
her  words  and  voice  became  more  intense,  more  personal. 
She  talked  of  Him,  as  Mary  may  have  talked  just  risen  from 
His  feet.  She  spoke  of  Him  as  I  had  never  heard  Hira  spoken 
of  before — with  a  tender  passionate  loyalty,  kept  down  and 
softened  by  the  deepest  awe.  The  sense  of  her  intense  belief, 
shining  out  in  every  lineament  of  her  face,  carried  conviction 
to  my  heart  more  than  ten  thousand  arguments  could  do.  It 
must  be  true  I — Was  not  the  power  of  it  around  her  hke  a 
glory  ?  She  spoke  of  Him  as  near  us — watching  us — in  words 
of  such  vivid  eloquence  that  I  turned  half-startled  to  her,  as 
if  I  expected  to  see  Him  standing  by  her  side. 

She  spoke  of  Him  as  the  great  Pveformer ;  and  yet  as  the 
true  conservative  ;  the  inspirer  of  all  new  truths,  revealing  in 
His  Bible  to  every  age  abysses  of  new  wisdom,  as  the  times 
require ;  and  yet  the  vindicator  of  all  which  is  ancient  and 
eternal — the  justifier  of  His  own  dealings  with  man  from  the 
bcsinning.  She  spoke  of  hira  as  the  true  demagogue — the 
champion  of  the  poor ;  and  yet  as  the  true  King,  above  and 
below  all  earthly  rank ;  on  whose  will  alone  all  real  superior- 
ity of  man  to  man,  all  the  time-justified  and  time-honored  usages 
of  the  family,  the  society,  the  nation,  stand  and  shall  stand 

Ibrover. 

I 

And  then  she  changed  her  tone  ;  and  in  a  voice  of  infinite 
tenderness,  she  spoke  of  Him  as  the  Creator,  the  Word,  the 
[nspirer,  the  only  perfect  Artist,  the  Fountain  of  all  Genius. 

She  made  me  feel — would  that  his  ministers  had  made  me 
feel  it  before,  since  they  say  that  they  believe  it — that  He  had 
jiassed  victorious  through  my  vilest  temptations,  that  He  sym- 
pathized with  my  every  struggle. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  PORT.  339 

She  told  me  how  He,  in  the  first  dawn  of  manhood,  lull  of 
the  dim  consciousness  of  His  own  power,  full  of  strange  yeam- 
inj^  presentiments  about  His  own  sad  and  glorious  destiny,  went 
U]!  into  the  wilderness,  as  every  youth,  above  all  every  genius, 
must,  there  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil.  She  told  how  alone 
with  the  wild  beasts,  and  the  brute  powers  of  nature,  He  saw 
into  the  open  secret — the  mystery  of  man's  twofold  life.  His 
kingship  over  earth,  His  sonship  under  God  :  and  conquered 
in  the  might  of  His  knowledge.  How  He  was  tempted,  like 
every  genius,  to  use  His  creative  powers  for  selfish  ends — to 
yield  to  the  lust  of  display  and  singularity  and  break  through 
those  laws  which  He  came  to  reveal  and  to  fulfill — to  do  one 
litllo  act  of  evil,  that  He  might  secure  thereby  the  hirvest  of 
good  which  was  the  object  of  His  life  :  and  how  he  had  con- 
quered in  the  faith  that  He  was  the  son  of  God.  She  told 
me  how  He  had  borne  the  sorrows  of  genius  ;  how  the  slight- 
est pang  that  I  had  ever  felt  was  but  a  dim  faint  pattern  of 
His  ;  how  He,  above  all  men,  had  felt  the  agony  of  calumny, 
misconception,  misinterpretation  ;  how  He  had  fought  with 
bigotry  and  stupidity,  casting  His  pearls  before  swine,  know- 
ing full  well  what  it  was  to  speak  to  the  deaf  and  the  blind; 
how  He  had  wept  over  Jerusalem,  in  the  bitterness  of  disap- 
pointed patriotism,  when  He  had  tried  in  vain  to  awaken 
within  a  nation  of  slavish  and  yet  rebellious  bigots,  the  con- 
sciousness of  their  glorious  calling 

It  was  too  much — I  hid  my  face  in  the  coverlet,  and  burst 
out  into  a  long  low,  and  yet  most  happy  weeping.  She  rose  and 
went  to  the  window  and  beckoned  Katie  from  the  room  within. 

'•I  am  afraid,"  she  said,  "my  conversation  has  been  too 
much  for  him." 

"  Showers  sweeten  the  air,"  said  Katie  ;  and  truly  enough, 
as  my  own  lightened  brain  told  me. 

Eleanor — lor  so  I  must  call  her  now — stood  watching  me 
for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  glided  back  to  the  bed-side,  and 
sat  down  again. 

"  You  find  the  room  quiet  ?" 

"  Wonderfully  quiet.  The  roar  of  the  city  outside  is  almost 
soothing,  and  the  noise  of  every  carriage  seems  to  cease  sud- 
denly, just  as  it  becomes  painfully  near." 

"  We  have  had  straw  laid  down,"  she  answered,  "  all  along 
this  part  of  the  street." 

This  last  drop  of  kindness  filled  the  cup  to  overflowing  :  a 
vail  fell  from  before  my  eyes — it  was  she  who  had  been  my 
ln<jnd,  my  guardian  angel,  from  the  beginning  I 


vj 


310  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  You — you — idiot  that  I  have  been  I  I  see  it  all  now  It 
was  you  M'ho  laid  that  paper  to  catch  my  eye  on  that  first 

evening  at  D 1 — you  paid  my  debt  to  my  cousin  ' — you 

visited  Mackaye  in  his  last  illness  I" 

She  made  a  sign  of  assent. 

"  You  saw  from  the  beginning  my  danger,  my  weakness  I — 
you  tried  to  turn  me  from  my  frantic  and  fruitless  passion ! — 
you  tried  to  save  me  from  the  very  gulf  into  which  I  forced 
myself  I — and  I — I  have  hated  you  in  return — cherished  sus- 
picions too  ridiculous  to  confess,  only  equaled  by  the  absurdity 
of  that  other  dream  I'' 

"  Would  that  other  dream  have  ever  given  you  peace,  even 
if  it  had  ever  become  reality  ?" 

She  spoke  gently,  slowly,  seriously  ;  Avaiting  between  each 
question  for  the  answer  Avhich  I  dared  not  give. 

"  What  was  it  that  you  adored  ?  a  soul,  or  a  face  ]  The 
inward  reality,  or  the  outward  symbol,  which  is  only  valuable 
as  a  sacrament  of  the  loveliness  within?" 

"Ay  I"  thought  I,  "  and  was  that  loveliness  within?  What 
was  that  beauty  but  a  hollow  mask?"  How  barren,  borrow- 
ed, trivial,  every  thought  and  word  of  hers  seemed  now  as  I 
looked  back  upon  them,  in  comparison  with  the  rich  luxuri- 
ance, the  startling  originality,  of  thought  and  deed  and  sym- 
pathy, in  her  who  now  sat  by  me,  wan  and  faded,  beautiful 
no  more,  as  men  call  beauty,  but  with  the  spirit  of  an  arch- 
angel gazing  from  those  clear  fiery  eyes  I  And  as  I  looked  at 
her,  an  emotion  utterly  new  to  me  arose  ;  utter  trust,  delight, 
submission,  gratitude,  awe — if  it  was  love,  it  was  love  as  of  a 
dog  toward  his  master 

"  Ay,"  I  murmured,  half  unconscious  that  I  spoke  aloud, 
"  her  I  loved,  and  love  no  longer  :  but  you,  you,  I  worship, 
and  forever  I" 

"Worship  God  I"  she  answered.  "If  it  shall  please  you 
hereafter  to  call  me  friend,  T  shall  refuse  neither  the  name  noi 
it«  duties.  But  remember  always,  that  whatsoever  interest  I 
feel  in  you,  and,  indeed,  have  felt  from  the  first  time  I  saw 
your  poems,  I  can  not  give  or  accept  friendship  upon  any 
ground  so  shallow  and  changeable  as  personal  preference.  The 
time  was,  when  I  thought  it  a  mark  of  superior  intellect  and 
refinement  to  be  as  exclusive  in  my  friendships  as  in  my  theo- 
ries. Now  I  have  learned  that  that  is  most  spiritual  and  noble 
which  is  also  most  universal.  If  we  are  to  call  each  other 
friends,  it  must  be  for  a  reason  which  equally  includes  the 
outcast  and  the  profligate,  the  felon  and  the  slave." 


Ai/roN  lockf:,  tailor  and  ron  .  341 

"  What  do  you  mean?"  1  asked,  half  disappointed. 

"  Only  for  the  sake  of  Ilim  who  died  lor  all  alike." 

Why  did  she  rise  and  call  Cro.=sth\vaite  from  the  next  room 
where  he  was  writin<T  ?  Was  it  fiom  the  womanly  tact  and 
delicacy  which  feared  lest  my  excited  feelings  might  lead  me 
on  to  some  too  daring  expression,  and  give  me  the  pain  of  a 
rebuff,  however  gentle  ;  or  was  it  that  she  wished  him  as 
well  as  me,  to  hear  the  memorable  words  which  followed,  to 
which  she  seemed  to  have  been  all  along  alluring  me,  and 
calling  up  in  my  mind,  one  by  one,  the  very  questions  to 
which  she  had  prepared  the  answers  ? 

"That  name  I"  1  answered.  "  Alas  I  has  it  not  been  in 
every  age  the  watchward,  not  of  an  all-embracing  charity,  but 
of  self-conceit  and  bigotry,  excommunication  and  persecution  ?" 

"  That  is  what  men  have  made  it ;  not  God,  or  he  who 
bears  it,  the  Son  of  God.  Yes,  men  have  separated  from  each 
other,  slandered  each  other,  murdered  each  other  in  that  name ; 
and  blasphemed  it  by  that  very  act.  But  when  did  they 
unite  in  any  natne  but  that  1  Look  all  history  through — from 
tlie  early  churches,  unconscious  and  infantile  ideas  of  God's 
kingdom,  as  Eden  was  oi'  the  human  race,  when  love  alone 
was  law,  and  none  said  that  aught  that  he  possessed  was  his 
own — but  they  had  all  things  in  common — Whose  name  was 
the  bond  of  unity  ior  that  brotherhood,  such  as  the  earth  had 
never  seen — when  the  Roman  lady  and  the  Negro  slave  par- 
took together  at  the  table  of  the  same  bread  and  wine,  and  sat 
together  at  the  feet  of  the  Syrian  tent-maker  ?  '  One  is  our 
Master,  even  Christ,  who  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and  in 
Ilim  we  are  all  brothers.'  Not  self-chosen  preference  for  His 
precepts,  but  the  overwhelming  faith  in  His  presence,  His  rule. 
His  love,  bound  those  rich  hearts  together.  Look  onward,  too, 
at  the  first  followers  of  St.  Beiinet  and  St.  Francis,  at  the 
Cameronians  among  their  Scottish  hills,  or  the  little  persecuted 
flock  who  in  a  dark  and  godless  time  gathered  around  John 
Wesley  by  pit-mouths  and  on  Cornish  cliffs — Look,  too,  at  the 
great  societies  of  our  own  days,  which,  however  imperfectly, 
still  lovingly  and  earnestly  do  their  measure  of  God's  work  at 
home  and  abroad  ;  and  say,  when  was  there  ever  real  union 
co-operation,  philanthropy,  equality,  brotherhood,  among  men, 
save  in  loyalty  to  Him — Jesus,  who  died  upon  the  cross  1" 

And  she  bowed  her  head  reverently  before  that  unseen 
Majesty  ;  and  then  looked  up  at  us  again.  Those  eyes,  now 
brimming  full  of  earnest  tears,  would  have  melted  stonier 
hearts  thar  ouns  that  da*'. 


312  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Do  you  not  believe  me  ?  Then  I  must  quote  against  you 
one  of  your  own  prophets — a  ruined  angel — even  as  you  might 
have  been. 

'•  When  Camilla  Desmoulins,  the  revolutionary,  about  to 
die,  as  is  the  fate  of  such,  by  the  hands  of  revolutionaries,  was 
asked  his  age,  he  answered  they  say,  that  it  was  the  same  as 
that  of  the  '  bon  sans-culotte  Jesus.'  I  do  not  blame  those 
who  shrink  from  that  speech  as  blasphemous.  I,  too,  have 
spoken  hasty  words  and  hard,  and  prided  myself  on  breaking 
the  bruised  reed,  and  quenching  the  smoking  flax.  Time  was, 
when  I  should  have  been  the  loudest  in  denouncing  poor  Ca- 
mille  :  but  I  have  long  since  seemed  to  see  in  those  words  the 
distortion  of  au  almighty  truth — a  truth  that  shall  shake 
thrones  and  principalities  and  powers,  and  fill  the  earth  with 
its  sound  as  with  the  trump  of  God  :  a  prophecy  like  Ba- 
laam's of  old — '  I  shall  see  Him,  butiiot  nigh  ;  I  shall  be- 
hold Him,  but  not   near.' ^Take   all    the   heroes, 

prophets,  poets,  philosophers — where  M'ill  you  find  the  true 
demagogue — the  speaker  to  man,  simply  as  man — the  friend 
of  publicans  and  sinners,  the  stern  foe  of  the  Scribe  and  the 
Pharisee — with  whom  was  no  respect  of  persons — where  is 
he?  Socrates  and  Plato  were  noble;  Zerdusht  and  Confut- 
zce,  for  aught  we  know,  were  nobler  still ;  but  what  were 
they  but  the  exclusive  mystagogues  of  an  enlightened  few, 
ike  our  own  Emersons  and  Strausses,  to  compare  great 
Vv'ith  small  ?  What  gospel  have  they,  or  Strauss,  or  Emer- 
son, for  the  poor,  the  suffering,  the  oppressed?  The  Peo- 
ple's Friend  ?  Where  will  you  find  him,  hut  in  Jesus  of 
,  Nazareth  V 

'  We  feel  that;  I  assure  you  we  feel  that,"  said  Crossth- 
waite.  "  There  are  thousands  of  ixs  who  delight  in  His 
moral  teaching,  as  the  perfection  of  human  excellence." 

"  And  what  gospel  is  there  in  a  moral  teaching  ?  What 
good  news  is  it  to  the  savage  of  St.  Giles's,  to  the  artisan 
crushed  by  the  competition  of  others  and  his  OAvn  evil  habits, 
to  tell  him  that  he  can  be  free — if  he  can  make  himself 
free  ?  That  all  men  are  his  equals — if  he  can  rise  to  their 
level,  or  pull  them  down  to  his  ?  All  men  his  brothers — if  he 
can  only  stop  them  from  devouring  him,  or  making  it  neces- 
sary for  him  to  devour  them  ?  Liberty,  equality,  and  brother- 
hood ?  Let  the  history  of  every  nation,  of  every  revolution 
— let  your  own  sad  experience,  speak — have  they  been  aught 
as  yet  but  delusive  phantoms — angels  that  turned  to  fiends 
the  moment  vou  seemed   about  to  clasp  ihom?      1>'':h<u'.Ih'i 


ALTON   LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  rORT.  313 

the  tenth  of  April,  and  tlie  plots  thereof,  and  ans\ve<"  your  own 
hearts  I" 

Crossthwaite  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"  What !"  I  answered  passionately,  "  Will  you  rob  us  poor 
creatures  of  our  only  faith,  our  only  hope  on  earth  ?  Let  us 
bo  deceived,  and  deceived  again ;  yet  we  will  believe  I  We 
will  hope  on  in  spite  of  hope.  We  may  die  but  the  idea  lives 
forever.  Liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  must  come.  We 
know,  we  know  that  they  must  come  ;  and  woe  to  those 
who  seek  to  rob  us  of  our  i'aith  I" 

"  Keep,  keep  your  faith,"  she  cried  ;  "  for  it  is  not  yours, 
but  God's  Avho  gave  it  !  But  do  not  seek  to  realize  that  idea 
for  yourselves." 

"  Why,  then,  in  the  name  of  reason  and  mercy  ?" 

"  Because  it  is  realized  already  for  you.  You  are  free ; 
God  has  made  you  free.  You  are  equals — you  are  brothers; 
for  He  is  your  king,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons.  He  is 
your  king,  who  has  bought  for  you  the  rights  of  sons  of  God. 
He  is  your  king,  to  whom  all  power  is  given  in  heaven  and 
earth  ;  who  reigns,  and  will  reign,  till  He  has  put  all  enemies 
under  His  feet.  That  was  Luther's  charter — with  that  alone 
he  freed  half  Europe.  That  is  your  charter,  and  mine  ;  the 
everlasting  ground  of  our  rights,  our  mights,  our  duties,  of  ever- 
gathering  storm  for  the  oppressor,  of  ever-brightening  sunshine 
for  the  oppressed.  Own  no  other.  Claim  your  investiture 
as  free  men  from  none  but  God.  His  will,  His  love,  is  a 
stronger  ground,  surely,  than  abstract  rights  and  ethnological 
opinions.  Abstract  rights  ?  What  ground,  what  root  have 
they,  but  the  ever-changing  opinions  of  men,  born  anew  and 
dying  anew  with  each  fresh  generation  ? — while  the  word  of 
God  stands  sure — '  Y'ou  are  mine,  and  I  am  yours,  bound  to 
you  in  an  everlasting  covenant.' 

"  Abstract  rights  ?  They  are  sure  to  end,  in  practice,  only 
in  the  tyranny  of  their  father — opinion.  In  favored  England 
here,  the  notions  of  abstract  right  among  the  many  are  not 
so  incorrect,  thanks  to  three  centuries  of  Protestant  civiliza- 
tion ;  but  only  because  the  right  notions  suit  the  many  at  this 
moment.  But  in  America,  even  now,  the  same  ideas  of  ab- 
tract  right  do  not  interfere  with  the  tyranny  of  the  Avhite 
man  over  the  black.  W^hy  should  they  ?  The  white  man 
is  handsomer,  stronger,  cunninger,  worthier  than  the  black. 
The  black  is  more  like  an  ape  than  the  white  man — he  is— 
the  fact  is  there  ;  and  no  notions  of  an  abstract  right  will  put 
that  down  :  nothing  but  another  fact — a  mightier,  more  uni 


341  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  I'OET. 

versal  fact — Jesus  of  Nazareth  died  for  the  negro  as  well  a^ 
for  the  white.  Looked  at  apart  from  Plim,  each  race,  each 
individual  of  mankind,  stands  separate  and  alone,  owing  no 
more  brotherhood  to  each  other  than  wolf  to  wolf,  or  pike  to 
pike — himself  a  mightier  beast  of  prey — even  as  he  has  proved 
himself  in  every  age.  Looked  at  as  he  is,  as  joined  into  one 
family  in  Christ,  his  archetype  and  head,  even  the  most  fran- 
tic declamations  of  the  French  democrat,  about  the  majesty 
of  the  people,  the  divinity  of  mankind,  become  rational,  rever 
ent,  and  literal.  God's  grace  outrivals  all  man's  boasting — 
'  I  have  said,  ye  are  gods,  and  ye  are  all  the  children  of  the 
most  highest ;' — '  children  of  God,  members  of  Christ,  of  His 
body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His  bones,' — '  kings  and  priests  to 
God,' — free  inheritors  of  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understand- 
ing, the  spirit  of  prudence  and  courage,  of  reverence  and  love, 
the  spirit  of  Him  who  has  said,  '  Behold,  the  days  come,  when 
I  will  pour  out  my  spirit  upon  all  flesh,  and  no  one  shall 
teach  his  brother,  saying.  Know  the  Lord  for  all  shall  know 
Him,  fi-om  the  least  even  unto  the  greatest.  Ay,  even  on 
the  slaves  and  on  the  handmaidens  in  those  days  will  I  pour 
out  of  my  spirit,  saith  the  Lord  I'  " 

"  And  that  is  really  in  the  Bible  ]"   asked  Crossthwaite. 

"  Ay" — she  went  on,  her  figure  dilating,  and  her  eyes  flash- 
ing, like  an  inspired  prophetess — "  that  is  in  the  Bible  I  What 
would  you  more  than  that  ?  That  is  your  charter  ;  the  only 
ground  of  all  charters.  You,  like  all  mankind,  have  had  dim 
inspirations,  confused  yearnings  after  your  future  destiny,  and, 
like  all  the  world  from  the  beginning  you  have  tried  to  realize, 
by' self-v/illed  methods  of  your  own,  what  you  can  only  do  by 
God's  inspiration,  by  God's  method.  Like  the  builders  of  Babel 
in  old  time,  you  have  said,  '  Go  to,  let  us  build  us  a  city  and 
a  tower,  whose  top  shall  reach  to  heaven' — And  God  has  con- 
founded you  as  he  did  them.  By  mistrust,  division,  passion,  and 
folly,  you  are  scattered  abroad.  Even  in  these  last  few  days, 
the  last  dregs  of  your  late  plot  have  exploded  miserably  and 
ludicrously — your  late  companions  are  in  prison,  and  the  name 
of  Chartist  is  a  laughing-stock  as  well  as  an  abomination." 

"  Good  Heavens  I  Is  this  true  ?"  asked  I,  looking  at 
Crossthwaite  for  confirmation. 

"  Too  true,  dear  boy,  too  true  :  and  if  it  had  not  been  for 
these  two  angels  here,  I  should  have  been  in  Newgate  now  I" 

"  Yes,"  she  went  on.  "  The  Charter  seems  dead,  and  lib- 
erty further  off  than  ever." 

"That  semes  true  enough,  indeed,"  said  I,  bitterly. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  tsiS 

"Yes.  But  it  is  because  Liberty  is  God's  beloved  child, 
that  He  will  not  have  her  purity  sullied  by  the  touch  of  the 
profane,  liecause  lie  loves  the  people,  lie  will  allow  none 
but  Himself  to  lead  the  people.  Because  He  loves  the  people, 
He  will  teach  the  people  by  aflhctions.  And  even  now,  while 
all  this  madness  has  been  destroying  itself".  He  has  been  hiding 
you  in  His  secret  place  from  the  strife  of  tongues,  that  you 
may  have  to  look  for  a  state  founded  ou  better  things  than 
acts  of  parliament,  social  contracts,  and  abstract  rights — a 
city  whose  foundations  are  in  the  eternal  promises,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God." 

She  paused. — "Go  on,  go  oti,"'  cried  Cro.'^sthwaite  and  ] 
iu  the  same  breath. 

"  That  state,  that  city,  Jesus  said,  was  come — was  now 
within  us,  had  we  eyes  to  see.  And  it  is  come.  Call  it  the 
church,  the  gospel,  civilization,  freedom,  democracy,  associa- 
tion, what  you  will — I  shall  call  it  by  the  name  by  which 
my  Master  spoke  of  it — the  name  which  includes  all  these, 
and  more  than  these — the  kingdom  of  God.  '  Without  ob- 
servation,' as  he  promised,  secretly,  but  mightily,  it  has  been 
growing,  spreading,  since  that  first  Whitsuntide;  civilizing, 
humanizing,  uniting  this  distracted  earth.  Men  have  fancied 
they  found  it  in  this  system  or  in  that,  and  in  them  only.  They 
have  cursed  it  in  its  own  name,  Avhen  they  found  it  too  wide 
for  their  own  narrow  notions.  They  have  cried,  'Lo  here  I' 
and  '  Lo  there  !'  '  To  this  communion  I'  or  '  To  that  set  of 
opinions  I'  But  it  has  gone  its  way — the  way  of  Him  who 
made  all  things,  and  redeemed  all  things  to  Himself  In  every 
age  it  has  been  a  gospel  to  the  poor.  In  every  age  it  has, 
sooner  or  later,  claimed  the  steps  of  civilization,  the  discoveries 
of  science,  as  God's  inspirations,  not  man's  inventions.  In 
every  age,  it  has  taught  men  to  do  that  by  God  which  they 
had  lailed  in  doing  without  Him.  It  is  now  ready,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  signs  of  the  times,  once  again  to  penetrate,  lo 
convert,  to  re-organize,  the  political  and  social  life  of  England, 
perhaps  of  the  world  ;  to  vindicate  democracy  as  the  will 
and  gift  of  God.  Take  it  for  the  ground  of  your  rights.  If,"^ 
henceforth,  you  claim  political  enfranchisement,  claim  it  not  ! 
as  mere  men,  who  may  be  villains,  savages,  animals,  slaves  of 
their  own  prejudices  and  passions ;  but  as  members  of  Christ, 
children  of  God,  inheritors  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and 
therefore  bound  to  realize  it  on  earth.  All  other  rights  are 
mere  mights — mere  selfish  demands  to  become  tyrants  in  youi 
turn.    If  you  wii?h  to  justifv  your  Charter,  do  it  ou  that  ground 


346       ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

Claim  yonr  share  in  national  life,  only  because  the  nation  is  ^ 
spiritual  body,  whose  Idng  is  the  Son  of  God  ;  whose  work, 
Avhose  national  character  and  powers,  are  allotted  to  it  by  the 
Spirit  of  Christ.  Claim  universal  sufirage,  only  on  the  ground 
of  the  universal  redemption  of  mankind — the  universal  priest- 
hood of  Christians.  That  argument  will  conquer,  when  all 
have  failed  ;  for  God  will  make  it  conquer.  Claim  the  disen- 
iranchisement  of  every  man,  rich  or  poor,  who  breaks  the  laws 
of  God  and  man,  not  merely  because  he  is  an  obstacle  to  you, 
but  because  he  is  a  traitor  to  your  common  King  in  heaven, 
and  to  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  which  he  is  a  citizen.  De- 
nounce the  effete  idol  of  property  qualification,  not  because  it 
happens  to  strengthen  class  interests  against  you,  but  because, 
as  your  mystic  dream  reminded  you,  and,  therefore,  as  you 
knew  long  ago,  there  is  no  real  rank,  no  real  power,  but  worth  ; 
and  worth  "Consists  not  in  property,  but  in  the  grace  of  God. 
Claim,  if  you  will,  annual  parliaments,  as  a  means  of  enforcing 
Ihe  responsibility  of  rulers  to  the  Christian  community,  ol 
M'hich  they  are  to  be,  not  the  lords,  but  the  ministers — the 
servants  of  all.  But  claim  these,  and  all  else  for  which  you 
long,  not  from  man,  but  from  God,  the  King  of  men.  And 
therefore,  before  you  attempt  to  obtain  them,  make  yourselves 
worthy  of  them — perhaps  by  that  process  you  will  find  some 
of  them  have  become  less  needful.  At  all  events,  do  not  ask, 
do  not  hope,  that  He  will  give  them  to  you,  before  you  arc 
able  to  profit  by  them.  Believe  that  he  has  kept  them  from 
you  hitherto,  because  they  would  have  been  curses,  and  not 
blessings.  Oh  I  look  back,  look  back  at  the  history  of  English 
K.adicalism  for  the  last  half  century,  and  judge  by  your  own 
deeds,  your  own  Avords  ;  were  you  fit  for  those  privileges  which 
you  so  frantically  demanded  ?  Do  not  answer  me,  that  those 
M'ho  had  them  were  equally  unfit  ;  but  thank  God,  if  the  case 
be  indeed  so,  that  your  incapacity  was  not  added  to  theirs,  to 
make  confusion  worse  confounded  I  Learn  a  new  lesson. 
Believe  at  last  that  you  are  in  Christ,  and  become  new  creat- 
ures. With  those  miserable,  awful,  farce-tragedies  of  April 
and  June,  let  old  things  pass  away,  and  all  things  become  new. 
Believe  that  your  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,  but  of  One 
whose  servants  must  not  fight.  He  that  beheveth,  as  the 
pvo[jhet  says,  will  not  make  haste.  Beloved  sufiering  broth- 
ers I — are  not  your  times  in  the  hand  of  One  who  loved  you 
to  the  death,  who  conquered,  as  you  must  do,  not  by  wrath, 
but  by  martyrdom  ?  Try  no  more  to  meet  Mammon  with 
his  own  Avcapons,  but  commit  j'onr  cause  to  Him  who  judge? 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        8-I7 

righteously,  who  is  even  now  coming  out  of  his  place  to  judge 
the  earth,  and  to  help  tlie  fatherless  and  poor  unto  their  right, 
that  the  man  of  the  world  may  be  no  more  exalted  against 
them — the  poor  man  of  Nazareth,  crucified  for  you  I" 

She  ceased,  and  there  was  silence  for  a  few  moments,  as 
if  angels  were  waiting,  hushed,  to  carry  our  repentance  to  the 
throne  of  Him  we  had  forgotten. 

Crossthwaite  had  kept  his  face  fast  buried  in  his  hands  ; 
now  he  looked  up  with  brimming  eyes — 

"  I  see  it — I  see  it  all  now.  Oh,  my  God  !  my  God  I  What 
infidels  we  have  been!" 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
MIRACLES  AND  SCIENCE. 

Sunrise,  they  say,  often  at  first  draws  up  and  deepens  tho 
very  mists  which  it  is  about  to  scatter :  and  even  so,  as  the 
excitement  of  my  first  conviction  cooled,  dark  doubts  arose  to 
I  dim  the  new-born  light  of  hope  and  trust  within  me.  The 
question  of  miracles  had  been  ever  since  I  had  read  Strauss_ 
[my  greatest  stumblingblock — perhaps  not  unwillinglyTIor  my 
doubts  pampered  my  sense  of  intellectual  acuteness  and  scien- 
lific  knowledge ;  and  "a  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing." 
But  now  that  they  interfered  with  nobler,  more  important, 
more  immediately  practical  ideas,  I  longed  to  have  them  re- 
moved— I  longed  even  to  swallow  them  down  on  trust — to 
take  the  miracles  "into  the  bargain"  as  it  were,  for  the  sake 
of  that  mighty  gospel  of  deliverance  for  the  people,  which 
accompanied  them.  JNIean  subterfuge  I  which  would  not,  could 
not,  satisfy  me.  The  thing  was  too  precious,  too  all-important, 
to  take  one  tittle  of  it  on  trust.  I  could  not  bear  the  con- 
sciousness of  one  hollow  spot — the  nether  fires  of  doubt  glar- 
ing through,  even  at  one  little  crevice.  I  took  my  doubts  to 
Lady  EUerton — Eleanor,  as  I  must  now  call  her,  for  she  never 
allowed  herself  to  be  addressed  by  her  title — and  she  referred 
me  to  her  uncle  : 

"  I  could  say  somewhat  on  that  point  myself.  But  since 
your  doubts  are  scientific  ones,  I  had  rather  that  you  should 
discuss  them  with  one  whose  knowledge  of  such  subjects  you, 
and  all  England  with  you,  must  revere." 

"  Ah,  but — pardon  me  ;  he  is  a  clergyman." 

"  And  therefore  bound  to  prove,  whether  he  believes  in  his 
own  proof  or  not.  Unworthy  suspicion  !"  she  cried,  with  a 
touch  of  her  old  manner.  "  If  you  had  known  that  man's 
literary  history  for  the  last  thirty  years,  you  would  not  suspect 
him,  at  least,  of  sacrificing  truth  and  conscience  to  interest, 
or  to  fear  of  the  world's  insults." 

I  was  rebuked ;  and,  not  without  hope  and  confidence,  I 
broached  the  question  to  the  good  dean  when  he  came  in — as 
he  happened  to  do  that  very  day. 

"I  hardly  like  to  state  my  difficulties,"  I  began — "for  I 
am  afraid  that  I  must  h  irt  myself  in  your  eyes  by  ofiending 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  349 

your — prejudices,  if  you  will  pardon  so  plain-spoken  au  ex- 
pression." 

"  If,"  he  replied,  in  his  bland  courtly  way,  "  I  am  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  have  any  prejudices  left,  you  can  not  do  me  a 
greater  kindness  than  by  ofiendnig  them — or  by  any  othei 
means,  however  severe — 'to  make  me  conscious  of  the  localitj 
of  such  a  secret  canker." 

"  But  I  am  afraid  that  your  own  teaching  has  created,  or 
at  least  corroborated,  these  doubts  of  mine." 

"  How  so  ?" 

"  You  first  taught  me  to  revere  science.  You  first  taught 
me  to  admire  and  trust  the  immutable  order,  the  perfect  har- 
mony of  the  laws  of  Nature." 

"  Ah  I  I  comprehend  now  !"  he  answered,  in  a  somewhat 
mournful  tone — "  How  much  we  have  to  answer  for  I  How 
often,  in  our  carelessness,  we  oRend  those  little  ones,  whose 
souls  are  precious  in  the  sight  of  God  I  I  have  thought  long 
and  earnestly  on  the  very  subject  which  now  distresses  you  ; 
perhaps  every  doubt  which  has  passed  through  your  mind, 
has  exercised  my  own  ;  and,  strange  to  say,  you  first  set  me 
on  that  new  path  of  thought.     A  conversation  which  passed 

between  us  years  ago  at  D on  the  antithesis  of  natural 

and  revealed  religion — perhaps  you  recollect  it  ?" 

Yes,  I  recollected  it  better  than  he  fancied,  and  recollected 
too — 1  thrust  the  thought  behind  me — it  was  even  yet  in- 
tolerable. 

"  That  conversation  first  awoke  in  me  the  sense  of  an  hith- 
erto unconscious  inconsistency — a  desire  to  reconcile  two  lines 
of  thought — which  I  had  hitherto  considered  as  parallel,  and 
impossible  to  unite.  To  you,  and  to  my  beloved  niece  here,  I 
owe  gratitude  for  that  evening's  talk  ;  and  you  are  freely  wel- 
come to  all  my  conclusions,  for  you  have  been,  indirectly,  the 
originator  of  them  all." 

"  Then,  I  must  confess,  that  miracles  seem  to  me  impossible, 
iust  because  they  break  the  laws  of  Nature.  Pardon  me — but 
there  seems  something  blasphemous  in  supposing  that  God 
can  mar  His  own  order :  His  power  I  do  not  call  in  question, 
but  the  very  thought  of  His  so  doing  is  abhorrent  to  me." 

"  It  is  as  abhorrent  to  me  as  it  can  be  to  you,  to  Goethe, 
or  to  Strauss ;  and  yet  I  believe  firmly  in  our  Lord's  miracles  ' 

"  How  so,  if  they  break  the  laws  of  Nature  ?" 

"  AVho  told  you,  my  dear  young  friend,  that  to  break  the 
customs  of  Nature,  is  to  break  her  laws  ?  ^  A  phenomenon,  an 
appearance,  whuher  it  be  a  miracle  or  a  comet,  need  not  con- 


350  ALTOxN  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET 

tradict  tnem  because  it  is  rare,  because  it  is  as  yet  not  referable 
to  them.  Nature's  deepest  laws,  her  only  true  laws,  are  her 
invisible  ones.  All  analyses  (I  think  you  know  enough  to  un- 
derstand my  terms)  whether  of  appearances,  of  causes,  or  of 
elements,  only  lead  us  down  to  fresh  appearances — we  can  not 
see  a  law,  let  the  power  of  our  lens  be  ever  so  immense.  The 
true  causes  remain  just  as  impalpable,  as  unfathomable  as 
ever,  eluding  equally  our  microscope  and  our  induction — ever 
tending  toward  some  great  primal  law,  as  Mr.  Grove  has 
well  shown  lately  in  his  most  valuable  pamphlet — some  great 
primal  law,  I  say,  manifesting  itself,  according  to  circum- 
stances, in  countless  diverse  and  unexpected  forms — till  all 
that  the  philosopher  as  well  as  the  divine  can  say,  is — The 
Spirit  of  Life,  impalpable,  transcendental,  direct  from  God,  is 
the  only  real  cause.  It  'bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou 
hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh, 
or  whither  it  goeth.'  What,  if  miracles  should  be  the  orderly 
results  of  some  such  deep,  most  orderly,  and  yet  most  spirit- 
ual law  ?" 

"  I  feci  the  force  of  your  argument,  but — " 

"But  yon  will  confess,  at  least,  that  you,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  crowd,  have  begun  your  argument  by  begging  the  very 
question  in  dispute,  and  may  have,  after  all,  created  the  very 
difficulty  which  torments  you." 

"  I  confess  it ;  but  I  can  not  see  how  the  miracles  of  Jesus 
— of  our  Lord — have  any  thing  of  order  in  them." 

"  Tell  me,  then — to  try  the  Socratic  method — is  disease, 
or  health,  the  order, and  law  of  Nature?" 

"  Health,  surely ;  we  all  confess  that  by  calhng  diseases 
disorders." 

"  Then,  would  one  who  healed  diseases  be  a  restorer,  or  a 
breaker  of  order  ?" 

"  A  restorer,  doubtless  ;  but — " 

"  Like  a  patient  scholar,  and  a  scholarly  patient,  allow  me 
to  '  exhibit'  my  own  medicines  according  to  my  oAvn  notion 
of  the  various  crises  of  your  distemper.  I  assure  you  I  will 
not  play  you  false,  or  entrap  you  by  quips  and  special  plead- 
ing. You  are  aware  that  our  Lord's  miracles  were  almost 
exclusively  miracles  of  healing — restorations  of  that  order  of 
health  which  disease  was  breaking — that  when  the  Scribes 
and  Pliarisees,  superstitious  and  sense-bound,  asked  Him  for  a 
sign  from  heaven,  a  contra-natural  prodigy,  he  refused  them 
as  peremptorily  as  he  did  the  fiend's  '  Command  these  stones 
that  they  be  made  bread.'     You  will  quote  against  me  the 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        3i! 

wa'ljT  turned  into  wine,  as  an  exception  to  this  ruk.  St. 
August.ne  answered  that  objection  centuries  ago,  by  the  same 
argument  as  I  am  now  using.  Allow  Jesus  to  have  been  the 
Lord  of  Creation,  and  what  was  he  doing  then,  but  what  he 
does  in  the  maturing  of  every  grape — transformed  from  ai. 
and  water  even  as  that  wine  in  Cana?  Goethe  himself,  un 
wittingly,  has  made  Mephistopheles  even  see  as  much  as  that, 

Wine  is  sap,  and  grapes  are  wood, 

The  wooden  board  yields  wine  as  gjod."' 

"But  the  time?  so  infinitely  shorter  than  that  which  Na- 
ture usually  occupies  in  the  process  I" 

"  Time  and  space  are  no  Gods,  as  a  wise  German  says  ; 
and  as  the  electric  telegraph  ought  already  to  have  taught 
you.  They  are  customs,  but  who  has  proved  them  to  be 
laws  of  Nature  ?  No ;  analyze  these  miracles  one  by  one, 
fairly,  carefully,  sciontifically,  and  you  will  find  that  if  you 
want  prodigies,  really  blasphemous  and  absurd,  infractions  of 
the  laws  of  Nature,  amputated  limbs  growing  again,  and 
dead  men  walking  away  with  their  heads  under  their  arms, 
you  must  go  to  the  Popish  legends,  but  not  to  the  miracles  of 
the  Gospels.     And  now  for  your  '  but' — " 

"  The  raising  of  the  dead  to  life  1  Surely  death  is  the  ap- 
pointed end  of  every  animal — ay,  of  every  species,  and  of  man 
among  the  rest." 

"  Who  denies  it  ?  But  is  premature  death?  the  death  of 
Jarius's  daughter,  of  the  widow's  son  at  Nain,  the  death  of 
Jesus  himself,  in  the  prime  of  youth  and  vigor — or  rather  that 
gradual  decay  of  ripe  old  age,  through  which  I  now,  thank 
God,  60  fast  am  traveling  ?  What  nobler  restoration  of  order, 
what  clearer  vindication  of  the  laws  of  Nature  from  the  dis- 
order of  diseases,  than  to  recall  the  dead  to  their  natural  and 
normal  period  of  life  ?" 

I  was  silent  a  few  moments,  having  nothing  to  answer  ; 
then. 

"  After  all,  these  may  have  been  restorations  of  the  law  of 
Nature.  But  why  was  the  law  broken  in  order  to  restore  it'{ 
The  Tenth  of  April  has  taught  me,  at  least,  that  disorder 
can  not  cast  disorder  out." 

"  Again  I  ask,  why  do  you  assume  the  very  point  in  ques- 
tion ?  Again  I  ask,  who  knows  what  really  are  the  laws  of 
Nature  ?  You  have  heard  Bacon's  golden  rule — '  Nature  14 
conquered  by  obeying  her  ?'  " 

"  I  have." 


352  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"  Then  who  more  likely,  who  more  certain,  to  fulfill  that 
law  to  hitherto  unattained  perfection,  than  He  M'ho  came  to 
obey,  not  outward  nature  merely,  hut,  as  Bacon  meant,  the 
inner  ideas,  the  spirit  of  Nature,  which  is  the  will  of  God  ? 
He  who  came  to  do  utterly,  not  His  own  will,  but  the  will  of 
the  Father  who  sent  him  1  Who  is  so  presumptuous  as  to 
limit  the  future  triumphs  of  science  ?  Surely  no  one  who 
has  watched  her  giant  strides  during  the  last  century.  Shall 
Stephenson  and  Faraday,  and  the  inventors  of  the  calculating 
machine,  and  the  electric  telegraph,  have  fulfilled  such  won- 
ders by  their  weak  and  partial  obedience  to  the  *  Will  of  God 
expressed  in  things' — and  he  who  obeyed,  even  unto  the  death, 
have  possessed  no  higher  power  than  theirs?" 

"Indeed."  I  said,  "your  words  stagger  me.  But  there  is 
another  old  objection  which  they  have  reawakened  in  my 
mind.  You  will  say  I  am  shifting  my  ground  sadly.  But 
you  must  pardon  me." 

"  Let  us  hear.  They  need  not  be  irrelevant.  The  un- 
conscious logic  of  association  is  often  deeper  and  truer  than 
any  syllogism." 

"  These  modern  discoveries  in  medicine  seem  to  show  thai 
Christ's  miracles  may  be  attributed  to  natural  causes." 

"  And  thereby  justify  them.  For  what  else  have  I  been 
arguing.  The  difficulty  lies  only  in  the  rationalist's  shallow 
and  sensuous  view  of  Nature,  and  in  his  ambiguous  slip-slop 
trick  of  using  the  word  natural  to  mean,  in  one  sentence, 
'  material,'  and  in  the  next,  as  I  use  it,  only  '  normal  and 
orderly.'  Every  new  wonder  in  medicine  which  this  great 
age  discovers — what  does  it  prove,  but  that  Christ  need  have 
broken  no  natural  laws  to  do  that  of  old,  which  can  be  done 
now  without  breaking  them — if  you  will  but  believe  that 
these  gifts  of  healing  are  all  inspired  and  revealed  by  Him 
who  is  the  Great  Physician,  the  Life,  the  Lord  of  that  vital 
energy  by  Avhom  all  cures  ai'e  wrouirht. 

"  The  surgeons  of  St.  George's  make  the  boy  walk  who 
has  been  lame  from  his  mother's  womb.  But  have  they 
given  life  to  a  single  bone  or  muscle  of  his  limbs  ?  They 
have  only  put  them  into  that  position — those  circumstances, 
in  which  the  God-given  lile  in  them  can  have  its  free  and 
normal  play,  and  produce  the  cure  which  they  only  assist.  I 
claim  that  miracle  of  science,  as  I  do  all  futui'e  ones,  as  the 
inspiration  of  Him  who  made  the  lame  to  walk  in  Judea,  not 
by  producing  new  organs,  but  by  His  creative  will — quicken- 
Mig  and  liberating  those  which  already  existed. 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  353 

"The  mesmerist,  again,  says  that  he  can  cure  a  spirit  oi" 
infirmity,  an  hysteric  or  paralytic  patient,  by  sheddinir  forth 
on  them  his  own  vital  energy ;  aiiu,  therefore  he  will  have  it, 
that  Christ's  miracles  were  but  mesmeric  feats.  I  grant,  foi 
the  sake  of  argument,  that  he  possesses  the  power  which  he 
claims  ;  though  I  may  think  his  facts  too  new,  too  undigested, 
often  too  exaggerated,  to  claim  my  certain  assent.  But,  I 
say,  I  take  you  on  your  own  ground;  and,  indeed,  if  man  be 
the  image  of  God,  his  vital  energy  may,  for  aught  I  know,  be 
able,  like  God's,  to  communicate  some  spark  of  hfe.  But  then, 
what  must  have  been  the  vital  energy  of  Him  who  was  the 
life  itself;  who  was  filled  without  measure  with  the  spirit, 
not  only  of  humanity,  but  with  that  of  God  the  Lord  and 
Giver  of  life  ?  Do  but  let  the  Bible  tell  its  own  story ;  grant, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  truth  of  the  dogmas  which  it 
asserts  throughout,  and  it  becomes  a  consistent  whole.  When 
a  man  begins,  as  Strauss  does,  by  assuming  the  falsity  of  its 
conclusions,  no  wonder  if  he  finds  its  premises  a  fragmentary 
chaos  of  contradictions." 

"  And  what  else,"  asked  Eleanor,  passionately,  "  what  else 
is  the  meaning  of  that  highest  human  honor,  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  but  a  perennial  token  that  the  same 
life-giving  spirit  is  the  free  right  of  all  V 

And  thereon  followed  happy,  peaceful,  hopeful  words,  which 
the  reader,  if  he  call  himself  a  Christian,  ought  to  be  able  to 
imagine  for  himself  I  am  afraid  that,  writing  from  memory, 
I  should  do  as  little  justice  to  them  as  I  have  to  the  dean's 
arguments  in  this  chapter.  Of  the  consequences  which  they 
produced  in  me,  I  will  speak  anon. 


CHAPTEPv  XXXIX, 

It  was  a  month  or  more  before  I  summoned  courage  to  ask 
after  my  cousin. 

Eleanor  looked  solemnly  at  me. 

"  Did  you  not  know  it?     He  is  dead." 

"  Dead  I"     I  was  almost  stunned  by  the  announcement, 

"  Of  typhus  fever.  He  died  three  weeks  ago  ;  and  not  only 
he,  but  the  servant  who  brushed  his  clothes,  and  the  shopman, 
who  had,  a  few  days  before,  brought  him  a  n.vv  coat  home." 

"  How  did  you  learn  all  thisl" 

"  From  Mr  Crossthwaite.  But  the  strangest  part  of  the 
J  sad  story  is  to  come.  Crossthwaite's  suspicions  were  aroused 
I  by  some  incidental  circumstance,  and  knowing  of  Downes's 
V  death;  and  the  fact  that  you  most  probal)ly  caught  your  fever 
I  in  that  miserable  being's  house,  he  made  such  inquiries  as 
I  satisfied  him  that  it  was  no  other  than  your  cousin's  coat — " 

"  Which  covered  the  corpses  in  that  fearful  chamber  1" 

"  It  was  indeed." 
'^"''    "  Just,  awful  God  I     And  this  was  the  consistent  Nemesis 
\  of  all  poor  George's  thrift  and  cunning,  of  his  determination 

Ito  carry  the  buy-cheap-and-sell-dear  commercialism,  in  M'hich 
he  had  been  brought  up.,  into  every  act  of  life  I  Did  I  rejoice  ? 
No;  all  revenge,  all  spite  had  been  scourged  out  of  me.  I 
mourned  for  him  as  for  a  brother,  till  the  thought  flashed 
across  me — Lillian  was  free  I  Half  unconscious,  I  stammer- 
ed her  name  inquiringly." 

"  Judge  for  yourself,"  answered  Eleanor,  mildly,  yet  with  a 
deep,  severe  meaning  in  her  tone. 
I  was  silent. 

The  tempest  in  my  heart  was  ready  to  burst  forth  again  ; 
but  she,  my  guardian-angel,  soothed  it  for  me. 

"  She  is  much  changed ;  sorrow  and  sickness — for  she,  too, 
nas  had  the  fever — and,  alas  I  less  resignation  or  peace  within, 
than  those  who  love  her  would  have  wished  to  see,  have  worn 
her  down.     liittle  remains  now  of  that  loveliness." 

"  Which  I  idolized  in  my  folly  I" 

"Thank  God,  thank  God  I  that  you  see  that  at  last:  I 
Knew  it  all  along.     I  knew  that  there  was  nothino;  there  for 


ALTON  LOCKF.,  TAILOR  AND  POET.        30.'; 

your  heart  to  rest  upon — nothing  to  satisfy  your  intellect — 
and,  therefore,  I  tried  to  turn  you  from  your  dream.  1  did 
it  harshly,  angrily,  too  sharply,  yet  not  explicitly  enough.  1 
ought  to  have  made  allowances  for  yon.  I  should  have  known 
how  enchanting,  into.xicating,  mere  outward  perfection  must 
have  been  to  one  of  your  perceptions,  shut  out  so  long  as  you 
had  been  from  the  beautil'ul  in  art  and  nature.  But  I  was 
cruel.  Alas  I  I  had  not  then  learned  to  sympathize  ;  and  I 
have  often  since  felt  with  terror,  that  I,  too,  may  have  many 
of  your  sins  to  answer  for  ;  that  I,  even  I,  helped  to  drive  you 
on  to  bitterness  and  despair." 

"  Oh,  do  not  say  so  I  You  have  done  to  me,  meant  to  me, 
nothing  but  good." 

"  Be  not  too  sure  of  that.  You  little  know  me.  You  little 
know  the  pride  which  1  have  fostered — even  the  mean  anger 
against  you,  for  being  the  protegee  of  any  one  but  myself 
That  exclusivencss,  and  shyness,  and  proud  reserve,  is  the 
bane  of  our  English  character — it  has  been  the  bane  of  mine — 
daily  I  strive  to  root  it  out.  Come — I  will  do  so  now.  You 
wonder  why  I  am  here.  You  shall  hear  somewhat  of  my 
story  ;  and  do  not  fancy  that  I  am  showing  you  a  peculiar  mark 
of  honor  or  confidence.  If  the  history  of  my  lile  can  be  of 
use  to  the  meanest,  they  are  welcome  to  the  secrets  of  my 
inr^nst  heart." 

••  I  was  my  parents'  only  child,  an  heiress,  highly  born,  and 
highly  educated.  Every  circumstance  of  humanity  which 
could  j)amper  pride  was  mine,  and  I  battened  on  the  poison 
I  painted,  I  sang,  I  wrote  in  prose  and  verse — they  told  me, 
not  without  success.  Men  said  that  I  was  beautiful — I  knew 
that  myself,  and  reveled  and  gloried  in  the  thought.  Accus- 
tomed to  see  myself  the  centre  of  all  my  parents'  hopes  ami 
i'ears,  to  be  surrounded  by  flatterers,  to  indulge  in  secret  the 
still  more  fatal  triumph  of  contempt  for  those  I  thought  less 
gifted  than  myself,  self  became  the  centre  of  my  thoughts. 
Pleasure  was  all  I  thought  of  But  not  what  the  vulgar  call 
j)leasure.  That  I  disdained,  while  hke  you,  I  Avorshiped  all 
that  was  pleasurable  to  the  intellect  and  the  taste.  The 
beautiful  was  my  God.  I  lived,  in  deliberate  intoxication,  on 
poetry,  music,  painting,  and  every  antitype  of  them  which  1 
could  find  in  the  world  around.  At  last  I  met  with — one 
whom  you  once  saw.  He  first  awoke  in  me  the  sense  of  the 
vast  duties  and  responsibilities  of  my  station — his  example  first 
taught  me  to  care  for  the  many  rather  than  for  the  few.  It 
v/as  a  blessed  lesson  :  yet  even  that  I  turned  to  poison,  by 


356  ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

making  self,  still  self,  the  object  of  my  very  benevolence.  To 
be  a  philanthropist,  a  philosopher,  a  feudal  queen,  amid  the 
blessings  and  the  praise  of  dependent  hundreds — that  was  my 
new  ideal :  for  that  I  turned  the  whole  force  of  my  intellect 
tothestudy  of  history,  of  social  and  economic  questions.  From 
Bentham  and  Malthus  to  Fourrier  and  Proudhon,  I  read  them 
all.  I  made  them  all  fit  into  that  idol-temple  of  self  which 
I  was  rearing,  and  fancied  that  I  did  my  duty,  by  becoming 
one  of  the  great  ones  of  the  earth.  My  ideal  was  not  the 
crucified  Nazarcne,  but  some  Hairoun  Alraschid,  in  luxurious 
splendor,  pampering  his  pride  by  bestowing  .as  a  favor  those 
mercies  which  God  commands  as  the  right  of  all.  I  thought 
to  serve  God,  forsooth,  by  serving  Mammon  and  myself  Fool 
that  I  was  I  I  could  not  see  God's  handwriting  on  the  wall 
against  me.     '  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  eater 

into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  I' 

"  You  gave  me,  unintentionally,  a  warning  hint.  The 
capabilities  which  I  saw  in  you  made  me  suspect  that  those 
below  might  be  more  nearly  my  equals  than  I  had  yet  fancied. 
Your  vivid  descriptions  of  the  misery  among  whole  classes  of 
workmen — misery  caused  and  ever  increased  by  the  very 
system  of  society  itself — gave  a  momentary  shock  to  my  fair} 
palace.  They  drove  me  back  upon  the  simple  old  question 
which  has  been  asked  by  every  honest  heart,  age  alter  age 
'  What  right  have  I  to  revel  in  luxury,  Avhilc  thousands  are 
starving  ?  Why  do  I  pi'ide  myself  on  doling  out  to  them 
small  fractions  of  that  wealth,  which,  if  sacrificed  utterly  and 
at  once,  nright  help  to  raise  hundreds  to  a  civilization  as  high 
as  my  own.'  I  could  not  face  the  thought;  and  angry  with 
you  lor  having  awakened  it,  however  unintentionally,  I  shrank 
bade  behind  the  pitiable  worn-out  fallacy,  that  luxury  was 
necessary  to  give  employment.  I  knew  that  it  Avas  a  fallacy  ; 
I  knew  that  the  labor  spent  in  producing  unnecessary  things 
(or  one  rich  man,  may  just  as  well  have  gone  in  producing 
necessaries  for  a  hundred  poor,  or  employ  the  architect  and 
the  painter  for  public  bodies  as  well  as  private  individuals. 
That  even  for  the  production  of  luxuries,  the  monopolizing 
demand  of  the  rich  Avas  not  required — that  the  appliances  ol 
real  civilization,  the  landscapes,  gardens,  stately  rooms,  baths, 
books,  pictures,  works  of  art,  collections  of  curiosities,  which 
now  went  to  pamper  me  alone — me,  one  single  human  souj 
— might  be  helping,  in  an  associate  society,  to  civilize  a  hun- 
dred liimilies,  now  debarred  from  them  by  isolated  poverty, 
without  robbing   me   of  an    atoir  of  the   real   enjoyment  ol 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  PCET.  357 

benefit  of  tlicm.  I  knew  it,  I  say,  to  be  a  fallacy,  and  yet  I 
hid  behind  it  from  the  eye  of  God.  Besides,  '  it  always  had 
been  so — the  few  rich,  and  the  many  poor.  I  was  but  one 
more  among  millions.'  " 

She  paused  a  moment,  as  if  to  gather  strength,  and  then 
continued  : 

"  The  blow  came.  My  idol — for  he,  too,  was  an  idol — Ta 
please  him  I  had  begun — to  please  myself  in  pleasing  him,  I 
was  trying  to  become  great — and  with  him  went  from  me 
that  sphere  of  labor  which  was  to  witness  the  triumph  of 
my  pride.  I  saw  the  estate  pass  into  other  hands  ;  a  mighty 
?hange  passed  over  me,  as  impossible,  perhaps,  as  unfitting, 
for  me  to  analyze.  I  was  considered  mad.  Perhaps  I  was 
EG  :  there  is  a  Divine  insanity,  a  celestial  iblly,  which  conquers 
.worlds.  At  least,  when  that  period  was  past,  I  had  done 
and  suliered  so  strangely,  that  nothing  henceforth  could  seem 
strange  to  me.  I  had  broken  the  yoke  of  custom  and  opinion. 
My  only  ground  was  now  the  bare  realities  of  human  life  and 
duty.  In  poverty  and  loneliness  I  thought  out  the  problems 
of  society,  and  seemed  to  myself  to  have  found  the  one  solu- 
tion— self-sacrifice.  Following  my  first  impulse,  1  had  given 
largely  to  every  charitable  institution  I  could  hear  of^ — God 
forbid  that  I  should  regret  those  gifts — yet  the  money,  I  soon 
found,  might  have  been  better  spent.  One  by  one,  every 
institution  disappointed  me ;  they  seemed,  after  all,  only 
means  for  keeping  the  poor  in  their  degradation,  by  making  it 
just  not  intolerable  to  them — means  for  enabling  Mammon  to 
draw  fresh  victims  into  his  den,  by  taking  off  his  hands  those 
whom  he  had  already  worn  out  into  uselessness.  Then  1 
tried  association  among  my  own  sex — among  the  most  miser- 
able and  degraded  of  them.  I  simply  tried  to  put  them  into 
a  position  in  which  they  might  work  for  each  other,  and  not 
for  a  single  tyrant ;  in  which  that  tyrant's  profits  might  be 
divided  among  the  slaves  themselves.  Experienced  men 
warned  me  that  I  should  fail  ;  that  such  a  plan  would  be 
destroyed  by  the  innate  selfishness  and  rivalry  of  human 
nature  ;  that  it  demanded  what  was  impossible  to  find,  good 
faith,  fraternal  love,  overruling  moral  influence.  I  answered, 
that  I  knew  that  already ;  that  nothing  but  Christianity 
alone  could  supply  that  want,  but  that  it  could  and  should 
supply  it ;  that  I  would  teach  them  to  live  as  sisters,  by 
living  with  them  as  their  sister  myself.  To  become  the 
teacher,  the  minister,  the  slavo  of  those  whom  I  was  trying 
to  rescue,  was  now  my  one  idea  ;  to  lead  them  on,  not  by 


858  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

machinery,  but  by  precept,  by  example,  by  the  influence  of 
every  gift  and  talent  which  God  had  bestowed  upon  me  ;  tc 
devote  to  them  my  enthusiasm,  my  eloquence,  my  poetry,  my 
art,  my  science  ;  to  tell  them  who  had  bestowed  their  gifts 
on  me,  and  would  bestow,  to  each  according  to  her  measure, 
the  same  on  them  ;  to  make  my  work-rooms  in  one  word,  not 
a  machinery,  but  a  family.  And  I  have  succeeded — as  others 
will  succeed,  long  after  my  name,  my  small  endeavors,  arc 
forgotten  amid  the  great  new  world — new  Church  I  should 
have  said — of  enfranchised  and  fraternal  labor." 

And  this  was  the  suspected  aristocrat  I  Oh,  my  brothers,*^ 
my  brothers  I  little  you  know  how  many  a  noble  soul,  among 
those  ranks  which  you  consider  only  as  your  foes,  is  yearning  ; 
to  love,  to  help,  to  live  and  die  for  you,  did  they  but  know  the^ 
way  I  Is  it  tlieir  fault,  if  God  has  placed  them  where  they 
are  ?  Is  it  their  fault,  if  they  rel'use  to  part  with  their 
wealth,  before  they  are  sure  that  such  a  sacrifice  would  really 
be  a  mercy  to  you  ?  Show  yourselves  worthy  of  association. 
Show  that  you  can  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly 
with  j^our  God,  as  brothers  before  one  Father,  subjects  of  one 
crucified  King — and  see  then  whether  the  spirit  of  self-sacri- 
fice is  dead  among  the  rich  I  See  whether  there  are  not  left 
41  En"-]and  vet  seven  thousand  who  have  not  bowed  the  knee 
.o  Mammon,  Avho  will  not  fear  to  "give  their  substance  to  the 
ree,"  if  they  find  that  the  Son  has  made  you  free — free  from 
.^our  own  sins,  as  well  as  from  the  sins  of  others  I 


CHAPTER  XL. 

PRIESTS  AND  PEOPLE. 

"But  after  all,"  I  said  one  day,  "the  great  practical  obje::- 
lion  still  remains  unanswered — the  clergy  ]  Are  we  to  throw 
ourselves  into  their  hands,  after  all  1  Are  we,  who  have  been 
declaiming  all  our  lives  against  priestcraft,  voluntarily  to  forge 
again  the  chains  of  our  slavery  to  a  class  whom  we  neither 
trust  nor  honor  ?" 

She  smiled.  "  If  you  will  examine  the  Prayer-Book,  you 
will  not  find,  as  far  as  T  am  aware,  any  thing  which  binds  a 
man  to  become  the  slave  of  the  priesthood,  voluntarily  or 
otherwise.  Whether  the  people  become  priest-ridden  or  not, 
hereafter  will  depend,  as  it  always  has  done,  utterly  on  them- 
selves. As  long  as  the  people  act  upon  their  spiritual  liberty 
and  live  with  eyes  undimmed  by  superstitious  fear,  fixed  in 
loving  boldness  on  their  Father  in  heaven,  and  their  Kin"-, 
the  first-born  among  many  brethren,  the  priesthood  will  re- 
main, as  God  intended  them,  only  the  interpreters  and  wit- 
nesses of  His  will  and  His  kingdom.  But  let  them  turn  their 
eyes  from  Him  to  aught  in  earth  or  heaven  beside,  and  there 
will  be  no  lack  of  priestcraft,  of  vails  to  hide  Him  from  them, 
tyrants  to  keep  them  from  Him,  idols  to  ape  His  likeness. 
A  sinful  people  will  be  sure  to  be  a  priest-ridden  people  ;  in 
reality,  though  not  in  name  ;  by  journalists  and  demagogues, 
if  not  by  class-leaders  and  popes  :  and  of  the  two,  I  confess  I 
should  prefer  a  Hildebrand  to  an  O'Flynn." 

"  But,"  I  replied,  "  we  do  not  love,  we  do  not  trust,  we  do 
not  respect  the  clergy.  Has  their  conduct  to  the  masses,  for 
the  last  century,  deserved  that  we  should  do  so?  Will  j'ou 
ask  us  to  obey  the  men  whom  we  despise  ]" 

"God  forbid  I"  she  answered.  "  IBut  you  must  surely  be 
aware  of  the  miraculous,  CA^cr-increasing  improvement  in  the 
clergy." 

"In  morals,"  I  said,  "  and  in  industry,  doubtless  ;  but  not 
upon  those  points  which  are  to  us  just  now  dearer  than  their 
morals  or  their  industry,  because  they  involve  the  very  exist- 
ence of  our  own  industry  and  our  own  morals — I  mean,  social 
and  political  subjects.  On  them  the  clergy  seem  to  me  as 
Ignorant,  as  bigoted,  as  aristocratic  as  ever." 


360  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

"But,  suppose  that  there  were  a  rapidly-increasing  clasu 
among  the  clergy,  who  were  willing  to  help  you  to  the  utter- 
most— and  you  must  feel  that  their  help  would  be  worth  hav- 
ing— toward  the  attainment  of  social  reform,  if  you  would 
waive  for  a  time  merely  political  reform  ?" 

"What!"  I  said,  "give  up  the  very  ideas  for  which  we 
have  struggled,  and  sinned,  and  all  but  died  ?  and  will  struggle, 
and,  if  need  be.  die  for  still,  or  confess  ourselves  traitors  to  the 
common  weal  V 

"  The  Charter,  like  its  supporters,  must  die  to  itself  before 
it  lives  to  God.     Is  it  not  even  now  further  off  than  ever"?" 

"  It  seems  so  indeed — but  what  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  You  regarded  the  Charter  as  an  absolute  end.  You  made 
a  selfish  and  a  self-willed  idol  of  it.  And  therefore  God  s 
blessing  did  not  rest  on  it  or  you." 

"  We  want  it  as  a  means  as  well  as  an  end — as  a  means 
for  the  highest  and,  widest  social  reform,  as  M'ell  as  a  right 
dependent  on  eternal  justice." 

"  Let  the  working  classes  prove  that,  then,"  she  replied, 
"  in  their  actions  now.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  would  fain  believe 
it  to  be,  let  them  show  that  they  are  willing  to  give  up  their 
will  to  God's  will ;  to  compass  those  social  reforms  by  the 
means  which  God  puts  in  their  way,  and  wait  for  His  own 
good  time  to  give  them,  or  not  to  give  them,  those  means 
which  they  in  their  own  minds  prefer.  This  is  what  I  meant 
by  saying  that  Chartism  must  die  to  itself  before  it  has  a 
chance  of  living  to  God.  You  must  feel,  too,  that  Chartism 
has  sinned — has  defiled  itself  in  the  eyes  of  the  wise,  the  good, 
the  gentle.  Your  only  way  now  to  soften  the  prejudice  against 
it,  is  to  show  that  you  can  live  like  men,  and  brothers,  and 
Christians  without  it.  You  can  not  wonder  if  the  clergy  shall 
object  awhile  to  help  you  toward  that  Charter,  which  the 
majority  of  you  demanded  for  the  express  purpose  of  destroying 
the  creed  which  the  clergy  do  believe,  however  badly  the}' 
may  have  acted  upon  it." 

"  It  is  all  true  enough — bitterly  true.  But  yet,  why  do  we 
need  the  help  of  the  clergy  ?" 

"  Because  you  need  the  help  of  the  whole  nation  ;  because 
there  are  other  classes  to  be  considered  besides  yourselves  ;  be- 
cause the  nation  is  neither  the  few  nor  the  many,  but  the  all ; 
because  it  is  only  by  the  co-operation  of  all  the  members  of  a 
body,  that  any  one  member  can  fulfill  its  calling  in  health 
and  freedom  ;  because,  as  long  as  you  stand  aloof  from  the 
ilergy,  or  from  any  other  class,  through  pride,  self-interest,  ci 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  561 

willful  ignorance,  you  arc  keeping  up  those  very  class  distinc- 
tions of  which  you  and  I  too  complain,  as  '  hateful  equally  to 
God  aud  to  his  enemies  ;'  and,  finally,  because  the  clergy  are 
the  class  which  God  has  appointed  to  unite  all  others  ;  which, 
in  as  far  as  it  fulfills  its  calling,  and  is  indeed  a  priesthood,  is 
above  and  below  all  rank,  and  knows  no  man  after  the  flesh, 
but  only  on  the  ground  of  his  spiritual  worth,  and  his  birth- 
right in  that  kingdom  Avhich  is  the  heritage  of  all." 

"Truly,"  I  answered,  "the  idea  is  a  noble  one — but  look 
at  the  reality !  Has  not  priestly  pandering  to  tyrants  made 
the  Church,  in  every  age,  a  scofi'  and  a  by-word  among  free 
men  ?" 

"  May  it  ever  do  so,"  she  replied,  "  whenever  such  a  sin 
exists !  But  yet,  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  picture.  Did 
not  the  priesthood,  in  the  first  ages,  glory  not  in  the  name, 
i.nt,  what  is  better,  in  the  office,  of  democrats  ]  Did  not  the 
Roman  tyrants  hunt  them  down  as  wild  beasts,  because  they 
were  democrats,  proclaiming  to  the  slave  and  to  the  barbarian 
a  spiritual  freedom  and  a  heavenly  citizenship,  before  which 
the  ]lomau  well  knew  his  power  must  vanish  into  naught  ] 
Who,  during  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  protected  the 
jioor  against  their  conquerors  ?  Who,  in  the  middle  age, 
stood  between  the  baron  and  his  serfs  ?  Who,  in  their  mon- 
asteries, realized  spiritual  democracy — the  nothingness  of  rank 
and  wealth,  the  practical  might  of  co-operation  and  self-sacri- 
fice 1  Who  delivered  England  from  the  Pope  ?  Who  spread 
throughout  every  cottage  in  the  land  the  Bible  and  Protest- 
antism, the  book  and  the  religion  which  declares  that  a  man's 
soul  is  free  in  the  sight  of  God  ?  Who,  at  the  martyr's  stake 
in  Oxford,  'lighted  the  candle  in  England  that  shall  never  be 
put  out?'  Who,  by  sufTering,  and  not  by  rebellion,  drove 
the  last  perjured  Stuart  from  his  throne,  and  united  every 
sect  and  class  in  one  of  the  noblest  steps  in  England's  progress? 
You  will  say  these  are  the  exceptions ;  I  say  nay ;  they  are 
rather  a  few  great  and  striking  manifestations  of  an  influence 
which  has  been,  unseen  though  not  unfelt,  at  work  for  ages, 
converting,  consecrating,  organizing  every  fresh  invention  of 
mankind,  and  which  is  now  on  the  eve  of  christianizing  de- 
mocracy, as  it  did  Mediaeval  Feudalism,  Tudor  Nationalism, 
Whig  Constitutionalism  ;  and  which  wili  succeed  in  Chris- 
tianizing it,  and  so  alone  making  it  rational,  human,  possible ; 
because  the  priesthood  alone,  of  all  human  institutions,  testifies 
of  Christ  the  K,ing  of  men,  the  Lord  of  all  things,  the  inspirer 
nf  a-1  discoveries  ;  who  reigns,  and  will  reign,  till  He  has  put 

Q 


362  ALTON  LOUKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

all  things  under  his  feet,  and  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  have 
become  the  kingdoms  of  God  and  of  his  Christ.  Be  sure,  as 
it  always  has  been,  so  will  it  be  now.  Without  the  priest- 
hood there  is  no  freedom  for  the  people.  Statesmen  know  it ; 
and,  therefore,  those  who  w^ould  keep  the  people  fettered,  find 
it  necessary  to  keep  the  priesthood  fettered  also.  The  people 
never  can  be  themselves  without  co-operation  with  the  priest- 
hood ;  and  the  priesthood  never  can  be  themselves  without 
co-operation  with  the  people.  They  may  help  to  make  a 
sect-church  for  the  rich,  as  they  have  been  doing,  or  a  sect- 
church  for  paupers  (which  is  also  the  most  subtle  form  of  a 
sect-church  for  the  rich),  as  a  party  in  England  are  trying 
now  to  do — as  I  once  gladly  would  have  done  myself:  but  if 
they  would  be  truly  priests  of  God,  and  priests  of  the  Uni- 
versal Church,  they  must  be  priests  of  the  people,  priests  of 
the  masses,  priests  after  the  likeness  of  Him  who  died  on  the 
cross." 

"And  arc  there  any  men,"  I  said,  "who  believe  this?  and, 
what  is  more,  have  courage  to  act  upon  it,  now  in  the  very 
hour  of  Mammon's  triumph  ?" 

"There  are  those  who  are  willing,  who  are  determined, 
whatever  it  may  cost  them,  to  fraternize  with  those  whom 
they  take  shame  to  themselves  for  having  neglected  ;  to  preach 
and  to  organize,  in  concert  with  them,  a  Holy  War  against 
the  social  abuses  which  are  England's  shame  ;  and,  first  and 
foremost,  against  the  fiend  of  competition.  pThey  do  not  want 
to  be  dictators  to  the  working-men.  They  know  that  they 
have  a  message  to  the  artisan,  but  they  know,  too,  that  the 
artisan  has  a  message  to  them  ;  and  they  are  not  afraid  to 
hear  it.  They  do  not  wish  to  make  him  a  puppet  for  any  sys- 
tem of  their  own  ;  they  only  are  willing,  if  he  will  take  the 
hand  they  offer  hirn,;  to  devote  themselves,  body  and  soul,  to 
the  great  end  of  enabling  the  artisan  to  govern  himself;  to 
produce  in  the  capacity  of  a  free  man,  and  not  of  a  slave  ;  to 
cat  the  food  he  earns,  and  wear  the  clothes  he  makes.  Will 
your  working  brothers  co-operate  with  these  men  ?  Are  they, 
do  you  think,  such  bigots  as  to  let  political  differences  stand 
between  them  and  those  who  fain  would  treat  them  as  their 
brothers  ;  or  will  they  fight  manfully  side  by  side  with  them 
in  the  battle  against  Mammon,  trusting  to  God,  that  if  in  any 
thing  they  are  otherwise  minded,  He  will,  in  His  own  good 
time,  reveal  even  that  unto  them  ?  Do  you  think,  to  take 
ono  instance,  the  men  of  your  own  trade  would  heartily  join 
a  handful  of  these  men  in  an  experiment  of  associate  labcr 


ALTON  LOCKK,  TAILOU  AND  TOET.  363 

even  though  there  should  be  a  clergj'mau  or  two  among 
them?" 

"Join  them?"  I  said.  "Can  you  ask  the  question?  I, 
for  one,  would  devote  myself,  body  and  soul,  to  any  entei-prise 
so  noble.  Crossthwaite  would  ask  for  nothing  higher,  than 
to  be  a  hewer  of  food  and  a  drawer  of  water  to  an  establish- 
ment of  associate  workmen.  But  alas  I  his  fate  is  fixed  for 
the  New  World ;  and  mine,  I  verily  belicx'e,  for  sickness  and 
the  grave.  And  yet  I  will  answer  for  it,  that,  in  the  hopes 
of  helping  such  a  project,  he  would  give  up  Mackaye's  bequest, 
for  the  mere  sake  ot  remaining  in  England ;  and  for  me,  if  I 
have  but  a  month  of  life,  it  is  at  the  service  of  such  men  as 
you  describe." 

"  Ah  I"  she  said,  musingly,  "  if  poor  Mackaye  had  but  had 
somewhat  more  faith  in  the  future,  that  fatal  condition  would 
perhaps  never  have  been  attached  to  his  bequest.  And  yet, 
perhaps,  it  is  better  as  it  is.  Crossthv.'aite's  mind  may  want 
quite  as  much  as  yours  does,  a  few  years  of  a  simpler  and 
brighter  atmosphere  to  soften  and  refresh  it  again.  Besides, 
your  health  is  too  weak,  your  life,  I  know,  too  valuable  to 
your  class,  for  us  1o  trust  you  on  such  a  voyage  alone.  He 
must  go  with  you." 

"With  me?"  I  said.  "You  must  be  misinformed;  I  have 
no  thought  of  leaving  England." 

"  You  know  the  opinion  of  the  physicians?" 

"  I  know  that  my  life  is  not  likely  to  be  a  long  one  ;  that 
immediate  removal  to  a  southern,  if  possible  to  a  tropical, 
chmate,  is  considered  the  only  means  of  preserving  it.  For  the 
former,  I  care  little  ;  non  est  tanti  vivere.  And,  indeed,  the 
latter,  even  if  it  would  succeed,  is  impossible.  Crossthwaite 
will  live  and  thrive  by  the  labor  of  his  hands ;  while,  for  such 
a  helpless  invalid  as  1  to  travel,  would  be  to  dissipate  the  little 
capital  which  poor  Mackaye  has  left  me." 

"  The  day  will  come,  when  society  will  find  it  profitable, 
as  well  as  just,  to  put  the  means  of  preserving  life  by  travel 
within  the  reach  of  the  poorest.  But  individuals  must  always 
begin  by  setting  the  examples,  which  the  state,  too  slowly, 
though  surely  (for  the  world  is  God's  world  after  all),  will 
learn  to  copy.  All  is  arranged  for  you.  Crossthwaite,  you 
know,  Avould  have  sailed  ere  now,  had  it  not  been  for  your 
fever.  Next  week  you  start  with  him  for  Texas.  No ; 
make  no  objections.  All  expenses  are  defrayed — no  matter 
by  whom." 

"  By  you  '  by  you  I     Who  else  ?" 


3C4  ALTON  LOCKL,,  TAILOR  AND  I'OBT. 

"  Do  you  think  that  I  monopolize  the  generosity  of  En- 
gland ?  Do  you  think  warm  hearts  beat  only  in  the  breasts 
of  working-men  ?  But,  if  it  were  I,  would  not  that  be  only 
another  reason  for  submitting  ?  You  must  go.  You  will 
have,  for  the  next  three  years,  such  an  allowance  as  will  sup- 
port you  in  comfort,  whether  you  choose  to  remain  stationary, 
or,  as  I  hope,  to  travel  southward  into  Mexico.  Your  pass- 
age-money is  already  paid." 

Why  should  I  attempt  to  describe  my  feelings  ?  I  gasped 
for  breath,  and  looked  stupidly  at  her  for  a  minute  or  two, — 
The  second  darling  hope  of  my  life  within  my  reach,  just  as 
the  first  had  been  snatched  from  me  I    At  last  I  found  words. 

"  No,  no,  noble  lady  I  Do  not  tempt  me  I  Who  am  I,  the 
slave  of  impulse,  useless,  worn  out  in  mind  and  body,  that  you 
should  waste  such  generosity  upon  me  ?  I  do  not  refuse  from 
the  honest  pride  of  independence  ;  I  have  not  man  enough  left 
in  me  even  for  that.  But  will  you,  of  all  people,  ask  me  to 
desert  the  starving,  sufiering  thousands,  to  whom  my  heart, 
my  honor  are  engaged  ;  to  give  up  the  purpose  of  my  life,  and 
pamper  my  fancy  in  a  luxurious  paradise,  while  they  are  slav- 
ing here  ?" 

"  What  1  Can  not  God  find  champions  for  them  when 
you  ai"e  gone  ?  Has  He  not  found  them  already  ?  Believe 
me,  that  Tenth  of  April,  which  you  fancied  the  death-day,  of 
liberty,  has  awakened  a  spirit  in  high  as  well  as  in  low  life, 
which  children  yet  unborn  will  bless." 

"Oh,  do  not  mistake  me!  Have  I  not  confessed  my  own 
weakness  ?  But  if  I  have  one  healthy  nerve  left  in  me,  soul 
or  body,  it  will  retain  its  strength  only  as  long  as  it  thrills 
with  devotion  to  the  people's  cause.  If  I  live,  I  must  live 
among  them,  for  them.  If  I  die,  I  must  die  at  my  post.  I 
could  not  rest,  except  in  labor.  I  dare  not  fly,  like  Jonah, 
from  the  call  of  God.  In  the  deepest  shade  of  tlie  virgin 
forests,  on  the  loneliest  peak  of  the  Cordilleras,  He  would  find 
me  out ;  and  I  should  hear  his  still  small  voice  reproving  me, 
as  it  reproved  the  fugitive  patriot-seer  of  old — What  doest 
thou  here,  Elijah?" 

I  was  excited,  and  spoke,  1  um  afraid,  after  my  custom, 
somewhat  too  magniloquently.  But  she  answered  only  with 
a  quiet  smile  : 

"  So  you  are  a  Chartist  still  ?" 

"  If  by  a  Chartist  you  mean  one  who  fancies  that  a  change 
in  mere  political  circumstances  Avill  bring  about  a  millennium, 
I  am  no  longer  one.     That  dream  is  gone — with  others.     But 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  TOLT.  365 

if  to  be  a  Chartist  is  to  love  my  brothers  with  every  faculty  of 
my  soul — to  wish  to  live  and  die  striiggliiif]^  for  their  rights, 
endeavoring  to  make  them,  not  electors  merely,  but  fit  to  be 
electors,  senators,  kings  and  priests  to  God  and  to  His  Christ 
— if  that  be  the  Chartism  of  the  I'uture,  then  am  I  seven-fold 
a  Chartist,  and  ready  to  confess  it  before  men,  though  I  were 
thrust  forth  from  every  door  in  England." 

She  was  silent  a  moment. 

"'The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected  is  become  the 
head-stone  of  the  corner.'  Surely  the  old  English  spirit  has 
cast  its  madness,  and  begins  to  speak  once  more  as  it  spoke  in 
Naseby  fights  and  Smithfield  fires!" 

"  And  yet  you  would  quench  it  in  me  amid  the  enervating 
climate  of  the  Tropics  ?" 

"  Need  it  be  quenched  there  ]  Was  it  quenched  in  Drake, 
in  Hawkins,  and  the  conquerors  of  Hindostan  ?  Weakness, 
like  strength,  is  from  within,  of  the  spirit,  and  not  of  the  sun- 
shine. I  would  send  you  thither,  that  you  may  gain  new 
strength,  new  knowledge  to  carry  out  your  dream  and  mine. 
Do  not  refuse  me  the  honor  of  preserving  you.  Do  not  forbid 
me  to  employ  my  wealth  in  the  only  way  which  reconciles 
my  conscience  to  the  possession  of  it.  I  have  saved  many  a 
woman  already  ;  and  this  one  thing  remained — the  highest  of 
all  my  hopes  and  longings — that  God  M'ould  allow  me,  ere  I 
died,  to  save  a  man.  I  have  longed  to  find  some  noble  soul, 
as  Carlyle  says,  fallen  down  by  the  way-side,  and  lift  it  up, 
and  heal  its  wounds,  and  teach  it  the  secret  of  its  heavenly 
birthright,  and  consecrate  it  to  its  King  in  heaven.  I  have 
longed  to  find  a  man  of  the  people,  whom  I  could  train  to  be 
the  poet  of  the  people." 

"  Me  at  least,  you  have  saved,  have  taught,  have  trained ' 
Oh,  that  your  care  had  been  bestowed  on  some  more  worthy 
object  I" 

"  Let  me  at  least,  then,  perfect  my  own  work.  You  do 
not — it  is  a  sign  of  your  humility  that  you  do  not — appreciate 
the  value  of  this  rest.  You  underrate  at  once  your  own 
powers,  and  the  shock  which  they  have  received." 

"  If  I  must  go,  then,  why  so  far  ?  Why  put  you  to  so 
great  expense  ?  If  you  must  be  generous,  send  me  to  some 
place  nearer  home — to  Italy,  to  the  coast  of  Devon,  or  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  where  invalids  like  me  are  said  to  find  all  the 
advantages  which  are  so  often,  perhaps  too  hastily,  sought  in 
foreign  lands." 

"No,"  she  said,  smiling;   "you  are  my  servant  now,  hv 


366  ALTON  LOCKE.  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

the  laws  of  chivalry,  and  you  must  fulfill  my  quest.  I  have 
long  hoped  for  a  Tropic  poet ;  one  who  should  leave  the  rou- 
tine imagery  of  European  civilization,  its  meagre  scenery,  and 
physically  decrepit  races,  for  the  grandeur,  the  luxuriance,  the 
infinite  and  strongly-marked  variety  of  Tropic  nature,  the 
paradisaic  beauty  and  simplicity  of  Tropic  humanity.  I  am 
tired  of  the  old  images  ;  of  the  barren  alternation  betvi^een 
Italy  and  the  Highlands.  I  had  once  dreamed  of  going  to 
the  Tropics  myself;  but  my  w^ork  lay  elsewhere.  Go  for  me, 
\  and  for  the  people.  See  if  you  can  not  help  to  infuse  some  new 
Iblood  into  the  aged  veins  of  English  literature;  see  if  you  can 
mot,  by  observing  man  in  his  mere  simple  and  primeval  state, 
toring  home  fresh  conceptions  of  beauty,  fresh  spiritual  and 
fohysical  laws  of  his  existence,  that  you  may  realize  them  here 
/at  home — (how,  I  see  as  yet  but  dimly  ;  but  He  who  teaches 
the  facts  will  surely  teach  their  application) — in  the  cottages, 
in  the  play-grounds,  the  reading-rooms,  the  churches  of  work- 
ing-men." 

"But  I  know  so  little — I  have  seen  so  little  !" 
"  That  very  fact,  I  flatter  myself,  gives  you  an  especial 
vocation  for  my  scheme.  Your  ignorance  of  cultivated 
English  scenery,  and  of  Italian  art,  will  enable  you  to 
approach  with  a  more  reverent,  simple,  and  unprejudiced, 
eye,  the  primeval  forms  of  beauty — God's  work,  not  man's. 
Sin  you  will  see  there,  and  anarchy,  and  tyranny :  but  I  do 
not  send  you  to  look  for  a  society,  but  for  nature.  I  do  not 
send  you  to  become  a  barbarian  settler,  but  to  bring  home  to 
the  realms  of  civilization  those  ideas  of  physical  perfection, 
which  as  yet,  alas  !  barbarism,  rather  than  civilization,  has 
preserved.  Do  not  despise  your  old  love  for  the  beautiful. 
Do  not  fancy  that  because  you  have  let  it  become  an  idol 
and  a  tyrant,  it  was  not  therefore  the  gift  of  God.  Cherish 
it,  develop  it  to  the  last ;  steep  your  whole  soul  in  beauty ; 
watch  it  in  its  most  vast  and  complex  harmonies,  and  not  less 
in  its  most  faint  and  fragmentary  traces.  Only,  hitherto  you 
have  blindly  worshiped  it ;  now  you  must  learn  to  compre- 
hend, to  master,  to  embody  it ;  to  show  it  forth  to  men  as 
the  sacrament  of  Heaven,  the  finger-mark  of  God  I" 

Who  could  resist  such  pleading  from  those  lips  ?     I  at  least 
could  not. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 
FREEUO.^r,  EQUALITY,   AND  BROTHERHOOD. 

Before  the  same  Father,  the  same  King,  crucified  for  all 
alike,  we  had  partaken  of  the  same  bread  and  wine,  we  had 
prayed  for  the  same  spirit.  Side  by  side,  around  the  chair 
on  which  I  lay  propped  up  with  pillows,  coughing  my  span 
of  life  away,  had  knelt  the  high-born  countess,  the  cultivated 
philosopher,  the  repentant  rebel,  the  wild  Irish  girl,  her 
slavish  and  exclusive  creed  exchanged  for  one  more  free  and 
all-embracing  ;  and  that  no  extremest  type  of  human  con- 
dition might  be  wanting,  the  reclaimed  Magdalene  was 
there — two  pale  Avorn  girls  from  Eleanor's  asylum,  in  whom 
1  recognized  the  needlev/omen  to  whom  Mackaye  had  taken 
me,  on  a  memorable  night  seven  years  before.  Thus — and 
how  better  1 — had  God  rewarded  their  Moving  care  of  that 
poor  dying  fellow-slave. 

Yes — we  had  knelt  together  :  and  I  had  felt  that  we  were 
one — that  there  was  a  bond  between  us,  real,  eternal,  inde- 
pendent of  ourselves,  knit  not  by  man,  but  God  ;  and  the 
peace  of  God,  which  passes  vmderstanding,  came  over  me  like 
the  clear  sunshine  after  weary  rain. 

One  by  one  they  shook  me  by  the  hand,  and  quitted  the 
room  ;  and  Eleanor  and  I  were  left  alone. 

"  See !"  she  said,  "  Freedom,  Equality,  and  Brotherhood/ 
are  come  ;  but  not  as  you  expected."  I 

Blissful,  repentant  tears  blinded  my  eyes,  as  I  replied,  not 
to  her,  but  Him  who  spoke  by  her — 

"  Lord  I  not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt !" 

"Yes,"  she  continued,  "Freedom,  Equality,  and  Brother-   ii 
hood  are  here.     Fvealize  them  in  thine  own  self,  and  so  alone  / 
thou  helpest  to  make  them  realities  for  all.     Not  from  with-  / 
out,  from  Charters  and  Ftepublics,  but  from  within,  from  thej 
Spirit   working  in  each;  not  by  wrath  and  haste,  but  by/ 
patience  made  perfect  through  suffering,  canst  thou  proclaim 
their  good  news  to  the  groaning  masses,  and  deliver  them,  as 
thy  Master  did  before  thee,  by  the  cross,  and  not  the  sword. 
Divine  paradox  I      Folly  to  the  rich  and  mighty — the  watch- 
word of  the  weak,  in  whose  weakness  is  God's  strength  made 
perfect.      '  In   your   patience   possess    ve  your   souls,  for  the 
coming  of  llie   Lord  drawelh   niirh.'      Yes — He  came  then. 


568  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

and  the  Babel-tyranny  of  Rome  fell,  even  as  the  more  fearful, 
more  subtle,  and  more  diabolic  tyranny  of  JNIammon  shall  fall 
ere  long — suicidal,  even  now  crumbling  by  its  innate  decay. 
Yes — Babylon  the  Great — the  commercial  world  of  selfish 
competition,  drunken  with  the  blood  of  God's  people,  whosa 
merchandise  is  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men — her  doom  is 
gone  ibrth.  And  then — then — when  they,  the  tyrants  of  the 
earth,  who  lived  delicately  with  her,  rejoicing  in  her  sins,  the 
plutocrats  and  bureaucrats,  the  money-changers  and  devour- 
ers  of  labor,  are  crying  to  the  rocks  to  hide  them,  and  to  tho 
hills  to  cover  them,  from  the  wrath  of  Him  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne.  Then  labor  shall  be  free  at  last,  and  the  poor 
shall  eat  and  be  satisfied,  with  things  that  eye  hath  not  seen 
nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive,  but  which  God  has  prepared  for  those  who  love 
Him.  Then  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea,  and  mankind  at  last  shall 
own  their  King — Him  in  whom  they  are  all  redeemed  into 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  Sons  of  God,  and  He  shall  reign  in- 
deed on  earth,  and  none  but  His  saints  shall  rule  beside  Him. 
And  then  shall  this  sacrament  be  an  everlasting  sign  to  all 
the  nations  of  the  world,  as  it  has  been  to  you  this  day,  of 
freedom,  equality,  brotherhood,  of  glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men.  Do  you  believe  ?" 
Again  I  answered,  not  her,  but  Him  who  sent  her — 
"  Lord,  I  believe  I  Help  thou  mine  unbelief  I" 
"  And  now,  farewell.  I  shall  not  see  you  again  before  you 
start — and  ere  you  return — My  health  has  been  fast  de- 
clining lately." 

I  started — I  had  not  dared  to  confess  to  myself  how  thin 
her  features  had  become  of  late.     I  had  tried  not  to  hear  the 
dry  and  hectic  cough,  or  see  the  burning  spot  on  either  cheek 
-  -but  it  was  too  true ;  and  -with  a  broken  voice,  I  cried  : 
"Oh  that  1  might  die,  and  join  you  I" 

"  Not  so — I  trust  that  you  have  still  a  work  to  do.  But 
if  not,  promise  me  that,  whatever  be  the  event  of  your  voyage, 
you  will  publish,  in  good  time,  an  honest  history  of  your  life  ; 
extenuating  nothing,  exaggerating  nothing,  ashamed  to  con- 
fess or  to  proclaim  nothing.  It  may  perhaps  awaken  some 
rich  man  to  look  down  and  take  pity  on  the  brains  and  hearts 
more  noble  than  his  own,  which  lie  struggling  m  poverty  and 
misguidance,  among  these  foul  sties,  which  civilization  rears 
— and  calls  them  cities.     Now,  once  again,  farewell  I" 

She  held  out  her  hand — I  would  have  fallen  at  her  feet, 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  369 

but  Uio  Uioiiglit  of  tli;it  common  sacrament  withheld  me.  I 
seized  her  hand,  covered  it  with  adoring  kisses  —  Slowly  slm 
withdrew  it,  and  glided  irom  the  room — 

What  need  of  more  words?  I  obeyed  her — sailed — and 
here  I  am 

Yi's !  I  have  seen  the  land  I  Like  a  purple  fringe  upon 
the  golden  water,  "  while  the  parting  day  dies  like  the  dol- 
phin," there  it  lay  upon  the  i'ar  horizon — the  great  young 
free  New  World  ! — and  every  tree  and  flower  and  insect  on 
't  new  I — a  wonder  and  a  joy — which  I  shall  never  see 

No — I  shall  never  reach  the  land.  I  felt  it  all  along. 
Weaker  and  weaker,  day  by  day,  with  bleeding  lungs  and 
failing  limbs,  1  have  traveled  the  ocean-paths.  The  iron  has 
entered  too  deeply  into  my  soul 

Hark  !  Merry  voices  on  deck  are  welcoming  their  future 
homo.  Laugh  on,  happy  ones  ! — come  out  of  Egypt  and  the 
house  of  bondage,  and  the  waste  and  howling  wilderness  of 
slavery  and  competition,  workhouses  and  prisons,  into  a  good 
land  and  large,  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  where 
you  will  sit  every  one  under  his  own  vine  and  his  own  fig-tree, 
and  look  into  the  faces  of  your  rosy  children — and  see  in  them 
a  blessing  and  not  a  curse !  Oh,  England !  stern  mother- 
land, when  wilt  thou  renew  thy  youth  ?     Thou  wilderness 

of  man's  making,  not  God's  I Is  it  not  written,  that 

the  day  shall  come  when  the  forest  shall  break  forth  into  sing- 
ing, luid  the  wilderness  shall  blossom  like  the  rose  ] 

Hulk  I  again,  sweet  and  clear,  across  the  still  night  sea, 
ring  out  the  notes  of  Crossthwaite's  bugle — the  first  luxury, 
poor  fellow,  he  ever  allowed  himself;  and  yet  not  a  selfish 
one,  for  music,  like  mercy,  is  twice  blessed — 

It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 

There  is  the  spirit-stirring  marching  air  of  the  German  work- 
men students  : 

Thou,  thou,  thou,  and  thou. 
Sir  Master,  fare  thee  well. 

Perhaps  a  half  reproachful  hint  to  the  poor  old  England  he 
is  leaving.  What  a  glorious  metre  I  Avarming  one's  whole 
heart  into  life  and  energy  !  If  I  could  but  writes  in  such  a 
metre  one  true  people's  song,  that  should  embody  all  my  sor- 
row, indignation,  hope — fitting  last  words  for  a  poet  of  the 
people — for  they  will  be  my  last  words —    Well — thank.  God! 


S70  ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET. 

at  least  I  shall  not  be  buried  in  a  London  church-yard !  It 
may  be  a  foolish  fancy — but  I  have  made  them  promise  to 
lay  me  up  among  the  virgin  M'oods,  where,  if  the  soul  ever 
visits  the  place  of  its  body's  rest,  I  may  snatch  glimpses  of 
that  natural  beauty  from  which  I  was  barred  out  in  life,  and 
watch  the  gorgeous  flowers  that  bloom  above  my  dust,  and 
hear  the  forest  birds  sing  around  the  Poet's  grave. 
\  Hark  to  the  grand  lilt  of  the  "  Good  Time  Coming  !" — 
pong  which  has  cheered  ten  thousand  hearts,  which  has 
already  taken  root  that  it  may  live  and  grow  forever — fitting 
melody  to  soothe  my  dying  ears  I  Ah  !  how  should  there  not 
be  A  Good  Time  Coming  1  Hope,  and  trust,  and  infmite 
'<leliverance  I — a  time  such  as  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard, 
nor  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  I — com- 
ing surely,  soon  or  late,  to  those  for  whom  a  God  did  not  dis- 
dain to  die  I 


Our  only  remaining  duty  is  to  give  an  extract  from  a  letter 
written  by  John  Crossthwaite,  and  dated 

Galveston,  Texas,  Oct.,  1848. 

"I    am    happy.     Katie   is    happy.     There    is 

peace  among  us  here,  like  'the  clear  downshining  aftei  rain.' 
But  1  thirst  and  long  already  for  the  expiration  of  my  seven 
years'  exile,  wholesoine  as  I  believe  it  to  be.  My  only  wish 
is  to  return  and  assist  in  the  Emancipation  of  Labor,  and  give 
my  small  aid  in  that  fraternal  union  of  all  classes  which  I 
hear  is  surely,  though  slowly,  spreading  in  my  mother-land. 

"  And  now  for  my  poor  friend,  whose  papers,  according  to 
my  promise  to  him,  I  transmit  to  you.  On  the  very  night 
on  which  he  seems  to  have  concluded  them — an  hour  after 
we  had  made  the  land — we  found  him  in  his  cabin,  dead,  his 
head  resting  on  the  table  as  peacefully  as  if  he  had  slumbered. 
On  a  sheet  of  paper  by  him  Avere  written  the  following  verses; 
the  ink  was  not  yet  dry  : 

'^'YiV  LAST  WORDS. 
L 
"  'Weep,  weep,  weep,  and  weep, 
For  pauper,  dolt,  and  slave  ; 
Hark  !  from  wasted  moor  and  I'en, 
Feverous  alley,  workhouse  den, 
Swells  the  wail  of  Englishmen ; 
"  Work  !  or  the  jrave  1"' 


ALTON  LOCKE,  TAILOR  AND  POET.  371 

IL 
" '  Down,  down,  down,  and  down, 
With  idler,  knave,  and  tyrant ; 
Why  for  sluggards  stint  and  moil  ? 
He  that  will  not  live  by  toil 
Has  no  right  on  English  soil ; 
God's  word  's  our  warrant ! 

III. 
"  'Up,  up,  up,  and  up. 

Face  your  game,  and  play  it ! 
The  night  is  past — behold  the  sunl— 
The  cup  is  full,  the  web  is  spun, 
The  Judge  is  set,  the  doom  begun, 
Who  shall  stay  it?'" 


THK    END 


r 

0 
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University  ot  Caiilornia 
SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRARYFACLTY^^^ 

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University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

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UC  SOUTHERN  RFGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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